The Woods: The Complete Novel (The Woods Series) Read online

  THE WOODS

  MILO ABRAMS

  Contents

  Other Books by Milo

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Day One

  Day Two

  Day Three

  Day Four

  Day Five

  Day Six

  Day Seven

  Day Eight

  Author’s Note

  Other Books by Milo

  Origins

  Waiting for the Fall

  To Kill a Ghost

  We, the Animals

  Astronauts

  Copyright

  © 2017 by Milo Abrams

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  For more information on Milo and his other books, visit www.miloabrams.com

  Kindle Edition

  Dedication

  To my wife, Megan: Without you my dreams would still be nothing more than just wishful thinking. Every word I ever write will be for you. I love you.

  Day One

  1

  James Callum stared out into the open field and felt like he was on another planet. Having spent the first twelve years of his life in the city, the unbridled expanse of the country overwhelmed him. The city was all he had ever known and the idea of spending the summer at his dad's newly built house–too many miles outside the city for him to walk–was life changing.

  "James, come call your mother,” his dad yelled from the front door, "you promised!”

  His dad’s house sat quietly at the end of a long country road without another house for miles. The space gave James the room for his imagination to unfurl. He ran up the gravel driveway, hopping onto the railroad ties that lined the right side nearest the house, and skipped along them like a bridge. He took huge gulps of the unfamiliar fresh air which rekindled the tiny embers of his dormant imagination, waking them up softly into a tiny flame. He stepped across the railroad ties, one foot in front of the other, and pretended he was hundreds of feet off the ground. At the end of his high-wire walk was the front porch which was so new he could still smell where the wood had been cut. It led up to a front door that was grander than any door in his house in the city. He knew it had to be expensive because it was heavy as hell to push open. He grabbed the cordless phone off its charging base on the kitchen counter and stared at the buttons.

  "You know how to use that thing?" his dad laughed. "You know, our cell phones used to be that big!"

  James pushed the talk button which illuminated the little red light on the receiver and heard a monotone buzz come from the earpiece. "Yeah, I got it," he said smugly. His dad was always cheerful now, and every time James was anywhere near a cordless phone he commented about how those cell phone generation kids just wouldn't understand dinosaur technology.

  “Good," he smiled, “you know there's no cell signal out here in the boonies, so you better get the hang of that puppy—it's your lifeline to civilization."

  James nodded sarcastically while he dialed home. After a couple of rings his mom answered. “Hello?”

  “Could I speak with Margaret Callum, please?" he said, trying to make his voice sound as unlike himself as he could.

  "James," she said seeing through his deception, "I know it's you."

  He laughed. "How'd you know?"

  "A mother always knows."

  "Right."

  "Thank you for calling me and letting me know you made it okay," she said.

  "Did I have a choice?" he asked smiling.

  She ignored his humor. "How's the house? Is it nice?"

  James thought he heard a bit of jealously in her voice. "It's really nice," he told her. He admired the kitchen that was covered in smooth, shiny counter tops, dark hardwood floors and futuristic steel appliances.

  "Good," she said, “you know, I always want the best for you."

  "I know.” Both of his parents said something similar when they decided to separate. They claimed his dad's crazy work schedule was putting too much strain on their relationship and that it was an adult issue that had nothing to do with him. They tried to explain it to him but James already understood. Being a doctor isn't a job, it's a life choice, and his father was one of the best cardiologists in the country. He had to accept his new life and the changes that came with it. He knew his father was a good doctor, yet somehow, her heart seemed to be the only one he couldn't fix.

  "I bet it's a big change from city life, huh?" she asked.

  James stared out the huge window above the kitchen sink that looked out into the backyard. Out there stretched another massive field that dwarfed the front yard, seeming to stretch for miles with a wall of trees at the very back that ran across the horizon and acted like a natural fence.

  "I don't think I've ever seen so many trees," he said. She thought that was particularly funny and as they laughed something caught his eye. At the very back of the field along the tree line was something sitting at the edge of the woods.

  His mom continued to talk but he didn't hear a word. Transfixed by the strange gray mass by the trees, his mother eventually noticed he wasn’t paying attention and quickly ended their call. To him it looked like a boulder, which weren’t uncommon in the country. Back in the city, the only rocks he ever saw were gravel or the large decorative bastards people with nice houses used to display their addresses. Despite his efforts, the distance from the house to the trees was just too far for his eyes to make out any details. He squinted as he stared, periodically rubbing his eyes every time he thought he saw it move. Just a stupid rock, he thought. Years of schooling and standing around barbecue grills taught him that heat was visible, and like a mirage in the movies or the invisible waves over the dunes of the Sahara, he attributed what he saw to his brain’s inability to process reality correctly. But just as he was losing interest, the photons from the thing at the back of the field smacked against his retinas and delivered a new message about reality to his brain. The blurry gray mass suddenly got up and disappeared into the trees.

  2

  He left the kitchen and searched the house for his dad, eventually finding him setting shirts out onto his bed. His bedroom was huge and clean looking with expertly placed crown molding, gray painted walls and the same dark hardwood floors as the kitchen.

  "Hey, your mother feel better now?"

  "Yes,” James replied staring down at his hands while he cracked his knuckles. “Dad, you've lived here a little while, right?"

  He nodded. "Couple weeks. Construction just finished, finally! You notice how the porch still smells like sawdust?"

  James laughed at the fact that they picked out the same detail. "You ever see anything in the backyard?"

  His father hung his shirts back into the closet, arranging them by hue. "Oh, sure. There's probably all sorts of things wandering back there, and you could even see some deer.” He raised an eyebrow with a grin, “Why, you see something?"

  James hesitated, "Yeah, at the very back, near the trees."

  His father put his arm around him then walked with him out to the kitchen. At the window, they stared together across the vast field all the way to the tree line where the reality of his dad’s yard ended and his imagination of the woods bega
n.

  "Deer are quite majestic, you know," he said squinting. James squinted with him, hanging over the sink as he looked. Suddenly something caught his dad’s eye and he yelled, “Look! Look there!” He pointed straight back toward the trees.

  James’s hair stood up as he traced the invisible path of his finger until his eyes met with a huge male deer right where he had seen the strange walking rock.

  “That’s a buck! Look at the antlers!" He watched his son continue to squint as he cleaned off his glasses. "Maybe it's time you get some glasses, too." He patted him on the shoulder then walked back to his room. James stayed at the sink and just watched the deer. It was impressive. He was finding out quickly how exciting nature was and how unnatural his city life had been.

  As he hung precariously over the sink in an earnest attempt to really see the deer, the phone rang and interrupted his quietly unfolding epiphany.

  “James,” his dad yelled from the bedroom, “could you get that?"

  "What am I, a secretary?" James mumbled.

  "What?" his dad called back.

  "I got it!" He picked up the receiver and his ears met with the smooth canter of a British man.

  "Nolan?" the voice asked.

  "No, this is his son."

  "Ah, James, right?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Say James, is your father around? I'm sort of in a rush."

  James yelled for his dad then set the phone down on the table. As secretary, his job was finished, so he went back to staring out the kitchen window.

  "Hello? Hey, Henry!" Nolan's voice trailed off.

  Two more deer joined the buck at the back of the field and James watched as they huddled together. They dipped their heads to the grass, occasionally sniffing and pulling at it with their teeth. They were so caught up in searching for food and listening for danger that they were completely unaware that he was even watching them.

  Nolan hung up and put his arm around his son. "Looks like a family there."

  It does, James thought. There was the big buck, a doe and her fawn. While the mother and baby continued to graze, the buck suddenly raised its head as if hearing a distant sound and then bolted off. The mother lifted her head to see that the buck had gone, gently nudged her baby and then they too ran off into the woods. He frowned because it reminded him of his family. Although he couldn’t see their faces, he imagined the look of bewilderment the mother must've shown as she realized her partner was gone.

  Nolan didn't make the connection, he just looked out the window blankly. "Hunter, probably," he shrugged.

  "There are hunters around here?” James asked.

  "Sure," Nolan replied," this property goes really far back, something like thirty acres or better. I wouldn't be surprised if hunters were wandering through those woods. The yard around the house is just a fraction of the property."

  James opened his mouth to ask him why he decided to build a house in the country but he was quickly interrupted.

  "Listen, I'm really sorry but that was work. They need me for a quick surgery. I promise I won't be too long. I'll bring back pizza for dinner, okay? Then tomorrow we can go out and grab some binoculars.”

  This was a common occurrence in James's life. He felt like he hardly knew his dad because he spent most of his time at the hospital. In a way, it created an opening for a sort of independence to grow in James to be his own man. Standing there in his dad's brand new house in the middle of nowhere, Nolan looked at him for some sort of confirmation and it made James squirm. Ever since the separation, Nolan seemed more like a buddy than a father. He stared at his son, waiting for permission to go, even though James had no choice in the matter.

  "Sure, I'll just explore the grounds, sir," James said, breaking the awkward silence and saluting him in his best soldier fashion.

  Nolan smiled, "It'll be good for you to get outside and away from the TV."

  James watched him leave from the porch, waiting until he was out of sight before wandering back into the house to snoop around. The house was very open, which contributed to the sense of freedom he felt. He was completely alone and free to do whatever he wanted for at least a few hours, but the lack of supervision left him with no idea of what really to do. He wandered around looking at the place his dad had built. It wasn’t a bachelor pad with its four bedrooms, all of which were also spacious. It had two elegantly decorated bathrooms and was furnished with the types of things that seemed very unmanly. It was almost as if James's mom had decorated the inside.

  He threw himself on the couch and bounced around a little. He could do anything and no one would know, so he jumped up and down across the cushions howling like a wolf. At the end of his elongated howling, he caught his breath with wandering eyes to make sure no one had heard him. Of course no one did, he was in the middle of the empty countryside where neighboring houses sat at least a mile apart. Laughing at his foolishness, he turned on the TV only to find out there was no signal. After investigating all the cables and the solid oak TV stand, he realized there was no active cable hook-up. Watching TV was out, but next to the TV stand was a thick stack of magazines. He picked one up.

  “Deer Master, huh?” It was an odd magazine to find in his dad’s house, as far as he was concerned, and after a minute of flipping through the pages and looking at all the hunting equipment, supplies, and pictures of deer, he threw it back onto the pile.

  Normally, James would let his father have his privacy, but the unusually large stack of hunting magazines made him wonder if his dad was hiding anything. For as long as he had known him, which was his whole life, Nolan Callum was only really interested in one thing: work. The hospital was his life and lifeline for keeping food on the table. He hadn't become a doctor without genuinely being interested in it. It wasn’t the sort of profession a person could or should take lightly, and Nolan didn't. He put everything into being the best doctor he could be, often sacrificing more than he should have for complete strangers.

  James wandered into his dad’s room. It was too neat and orderly for an avid woodsman. The dirty and wild characteristics of hunting clashed with the near-sterile neatness of his father’s bedroom. Maybe the cleaning habits had carried over from work, but it was how James had always known him to be.

  Nothing around the room seemed out of the ordinary. The bed was even neatly made with the comforter tightly tucked to the mattress. The only place out of sight was the closet. As soon as he pulled the closet door open it became apparent that there were some things his father wasn't telling him. Propped up against the wall, as far from the clean and crisp shirts he had just hung up as possible, were two rifles and a pair of muddy boots just like the ones he had seen in the magazines.

  Apparently, Dr. Nolan Callum was a hunter. The irony that he worked so hard to save lives, while simultaneously taking them in his spare time hadn't occurred to James. His twelve-year-old mind was more of a creek than an ocean—it just wasn't that deep.

  James closed the closet and left this revelation to rest. All that was left to do was to explore outside.

  “Over thirty acres, huh?" he asked himself. The idea was daunting and James was too much of a city boy to go wandering through the trees alone without the certainty of getting lost. He remembered seeing a huge barn on the other side of the driveway and decided he'd start his exploration there.

  He stopped in the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and as he twisted it open he happened to look out the window into the backyard. Along the tree line sat the blurry gray figure again. He stared at it for a minute, frustrated that the sheer distance made even squinting useless. It was at that moment he noticed that his dad’s laptop was sitting on the table in the kitchen, still flipped open. "Yes!" he yelled.

  Surfing the Internet was second nature for him. In an instant, he had the browser up and was ready to search the wealth of the World Wide Web for an answer. He looked out the window again and saw the gray mystery sitting in the same spot, taunting him with its stillness.

  “W
hat the hell are you?” he thought aloud. Speaking his thoughts helped him to organize them. "Could it be just a rock? No, I saw it get up and move." He scratched his head unconsciously, mimicking the traditional thinking gesture while his mind started to flip through the catalogue of every Ohio animal he could think of. He counted them out in his head as he searched. Bears, bobcats, coyotes, and wolves. Wait, wolves! His dad had told him that the woods were deep and all sorts of different animals could be wandering back there. As children, the line between fear and danger is even more blurred than it is for adults, and so the thought of wolves and deer wandering in the backyard was thrilling to James. He had never seen a wolf except for on TV and nothing on TV actually seemed real. His mind lured him into thinking about how he could lure the wolf back for a better look.

  "Maybe it's hunting the deer!" he yelled in revelation.

  He had never really been alone for any length of time, and if he was, there was always some way to communicate with other people. Out there though, he was isolated. Talking to himself was the best socialization he had aside from a bloody handprint on a volleyball or drawing a face onto his water bottle.

  He looked back into the yard for the wolf but it was gone. From that moment, his plan was in motion. He had to find a way to lure deer into the yard to lure the wolf back. Sick and twisted as it may have seemed to lure deer toward death just so he could see a wolf, James was young and the country was too wild and beautiful for him to resist. The only way he could think to lure an animal was with food. If the deer was going to be the wolf bait, then he needed bait for the deer. Problem was, he had no clue what deer ate. Being strictly a city kid, the only thing he knew how to feed, other than himself, was his dog, Duffy.

  He scoured through the cupboards and fridge looking for something a deer might eat. Turning up empty handed and defeated, he slumped back into the chair without a clue. He thought back to watching Bambi, but it was no use. Just as he was about to abort his mission in favor of something that took considerably less effort, the phone rang.