“Wistaria”

The Thing They Found in The Woods

A Walk

 

Zephyr careened out of the strip mall’s parking lot. The engine popped like a sonic boom and the tail pipe emitted a puff of smoke like a storm cloud. Like a lost child eager to find its mother, the exhaust followed Zephyr, hoping to unite. 

“I’m sure that’s a good sign,” Branden roasted sardonically referring to the smoke. 

“Oh yeah,” Kurtis responded in a deep baritone, trying his best to imitate the sexy voice he heard in his secret stash of Moby songs. Kurtis made a quick and unplanned left onto Phobos. The couple was gone, as far as he could tell. He stretched his neck until the tendons protruded like cables. 

“Man, give it a rest,” Branden sighed. He slurped the giant ice slushy he’d purchased at the mall and flipped through a comic. Their sale had been moderately successful, not to the extent Branden had expected, however. Kurtis, who felt guilty selling such precious collectables to mere children, sighed with relief when Branden finally gave up for the day. 

“I can’t believe we didn’t sell more today, Code-Man,” Kurtis said, both attempting a change of subject and testing his new nickname for Branden. 

“Code-Man?” Branden asked. The ice in his slushy rattled.

“Yeah, I thought of it this afternoon. What do you think? No?” Kurtis sucked his cheek. 

“Stick with Brando,” he laughed. Kurtis hung a right and Zephyr purred with excitement. Before them was wide open road, Kurtis pressed the pedal to the floor.

“He handles so well,” Kurtis felt the adrenaline surging up his throat, into his face and charging out from the ends of his hair. Kurtis swerved liberally into the opposing lane, feeling the imagined hydraulics. When he drove fast, Kurtis felt he could see into the car’s soul, as if everything the car thought, believed, liked and hated became part of him. His vision became tunneled until he could no longer see and then it was just the car driving, somehow telepathically telling him when to nudge the steering wheel. 

“Kurtis, you’re going like 100,” Branden warned. This catalyst brought Kurtis back into cold, florescent light reality. Suddenly, it was as if all his limbs could not longer control themselves. He looked down and saw nothing but fingers and arms as foreign as the tentacles of octopi. Somewhere between the wormhole void of friction and the ghostly figure walking across the road, Kurtis lost control of the wheel and crashed 1983 Thunderbird.  

Luckily for Kurtis Wavra and Branden Cody, the car had slowed enough, the trees were bent at just the right angle, the ditch provided enough traction and their seat belts had not failed. The only one sustaining life threatening injuries was Zephyr. The hood of the car, bent into an awkward triangle, tented the steam rising from the engine. The car moaned something that sounded like an apology. Kurtis dropped his head on the steering wheel, which was now several inches closer to his face. Branden, lodged beneath the glove compartment, uttered some curse words. He extracted himself. The passenger side door was now open in what Branden considered an ironic twist. For comfort, he swung his feet out and with it flew Kurtis’ backpack. 

“Holy shit!” Kurtis cried. “Holy shit, I can’t believe it! Three days! I had it for three days. Holy shit!” 

“I got better news. I think your Greiger thingy is broken,” Branden huffed and placed the busted measuring device on the dash.  

Kurtis seemed to fabricate a whole new brand of disappointment, “Holy shit. No no no no! What the shit?” 

“Are you okay?” Branden asked, he checked his arms and legs for injuries. His neck was just stiff with whiplash. 

“I’ve been better!” Kurtis screeched, his voice breaking like a prepubescent boy. In his arms, Kurtis cradled the Greiger counter like it was a lion cub. 

“Yeah, I really could have done without a car accident,” Branden eyed Kurtis angrily. Kurtis whimpered. “Dude, check out how far we are from the road.” 

“Wait, is this Deimos Forest?” Kurtis asked. 

“Yeah, think so.” 

“Great,” Kurtis jabbed the heel of his hand into the steering wheeling. 

Branden began to walk away from the car, into the woods, as if transfixed by the crosshatching layers of green, jade and celadon. 

“Hey man, did you see that thing walk across the road?” Kurtis shouted, trying desperately to draw his friend back towards the car. The only answer was the hushed murmur of footsteps through unmanaged tangles of weeds. The only evidence of Branden’s existence became the shuffling of tree branches and the snapping of twigs. “Dude, Brando? Seriously, man, you shouldn’t– don’t leave me– Branden!?” 

Kurtis rubbed away the allergy-caused tears forming in his eyes and slammed his fist onto the dash. The driver’s side door was wedged shut by a tree, so Kurtis climbed out of the passenger’s door. He took one last longing look at Zephyr. He had worked hard to earn the money for the car, and all of it gone after just three days. How many putt-putt balls had he sorted, how many dishes had he scrubbed, how many pieces of pizza had he embellished with slices of cheap pepperoni? Too many. 

“Are you coming, Wavra?” Branden called from the woods. Kurtis bit his lower lip and marched into the woods, violently whacking away low branches and spider webs. He nearly tripped in a gofer hole and the holes in his jeans harbored several burdocks. Thorns tore across his arms. He finally found Branden, sitting on a rock, looking contemplative at a tower of moss. 

“I hope you have a good reason for this,” Kurtis said brusquely. 

“I don’t. I just remember coming back here when we were kids,” Branden said. He turned to where they both knew the river flowed. They could even hear it, if they listened carefully, like the sound of static beneath the call of birds and bugs. 

“Yeah, I know. Hey, doesn’t that look like a path to you?” Kurtis asked pointing to a serpentine clearing that wound its way around the trees. 

“Who’s been back here?” Branden asked, standing. Kurtis shrugged and the walked forward, onto the path marked by rich, dark dirt. 

They walked together, shoulder to shoulder. The path met up with the river and they walked downstream beside the riverbank in silence. The sunlight skipped along the water freckling the ripples with white. Kurtis lifted up some rocks and disturbed the natural calmness. He found a stick and began to tap the trees as the passed, occasionally checking around, hoping to not see men in black cloaks. A log, under the pressure of Kurtis’ foot, disintegrated; millions of ants surged forth. 

“Remember playing back here all the time?” Branden asked. His face showed the signature look of a young man stricken with nostalgia. 

“Yeah,” Kurtis laughed, “remember we’d play X-Files? Only, there weren’t any girls to be Dana.” 

“Right, so we had to be Wavra and Kurtis. We were Dana and Mulder’s FBI friends, based in Wistaria.” 

Kurtis laughed, “Oh, yeah, I remember. Then stupid Leviathan had to lock this down. I doubt there’s anything dangerous about these woods.” 

“Well, didn’t that kid die? That was what they said made them unsafe.” 

“One kid dies in a freak accident– one that goes completely unexplained or investigated– and they shut down everything for good?” 

“Leviathan is– I don’t know anymore. It’s not safe for us to be here, now, that’s for sure. I mean, it’s Leviathan territory.” 

“All of Wistaria is Leviathan– hey, what’s that?” Kurtis pointed with the dirt-covered stick to a drainage pipe at the end of the path. The cement blocks rose like an alter and concealed a black pipe from which rain water flushed into Deimos River. Upon the cement, a pale figure lay. 

“I’m not sure,” Branden said slowly.  

“Looks like a bag,” Kurtis said and swatted a fly away from his face. What seemed like a million gnats were fighting for the tears and sweat that fell down his face. 

“No, no, look, it’s a little girl. She’s wearing a white dress or something.” 

“Is she sleeping?” Kurtis asked. They cautiously stepped forward. 

“Maybe she’s lost.” 

They came towards the alter, which was splattered with dried mud and covered in lace-like vines, now grey and withered. Kurtis reached her first and knelt to nudge her shoulder. 

“Holy shit, Branden,” Kurtis said quietly, his voice rippling like water. 

Branden came closer, he absently removed the missing notice from his pocket. He carefully unfolded it. He stood, his hands shaking, looking first at the girl, then at the photo. 

“Kurtis– it’s… it’s her, it’s her. Is she…?” Branden fell backwards, landing in a sitting position. He crept closer to the girl and touched her tumescent face. 

“She’s dead, Branden.”

“Wistaria”

The Thing They Found In the Woods 

A Girl Gone Missing

Branden Cody always received confused looks from his peers whenever he walked with Kurtis Wavra. Branden, who was 6′1” with short burgundy curls, broad shoulders and at least some notable muscle mass, was the polar opposite of Kurtis. Their opposing demeanor was not only physical. The difference in their personalities, their interests, their social statuses, could also be easily determined at first glance. Kurtis most always carried around a magazine describing super natural events or a recently released pulp science fiction thriller. Branden, on the other hand, with his sunglasses and his right-angle jaw line, was typically being waved at by the flirtatious young girls of Wistaria. Branden once said to Kurtis, 

“I’m no Drake Ojito, but I do alright.”

Kurtis wasn’t very interested in the flirtatious girls of Wistaria, neither was he jealous of the popularity Branden waltzed into around 10th grade. Certainly, Kurtis could have cut his straggly blonde hair and forgone his favorite purple plaid jacket in order to climb the ranks with Branden–but he just didn’t care enough. 

Kurtis was too busy. He had to spray paint his Converses gold so they would look futuristic for his meager attempts at a science fiction film. He was constantly writing essays that sympathized with the notorious Cigarette Smoking Man in “The X-Files” series. He also was building a series of tree forts in case he ever had to hide away. Conspiracy theories and science fiction had manipulated his malleable psyche and had thus created a paranoid, determined, oddity. 

And, despite Branden’s effortless popularity, he still hung close to his best friend, helped film his science fiction movies, read his stories, listened to Kurtis when he called at 3am crying because of some misunderstood smoking character on “The X-Files” and even helped build the complicated system of forts. Branden even began to worry he was starting to believe some of the crazy ideas Kurtis conjured. But this was a very remote worry. 

When Kurtis wasn’t inciting imaginative misadventures, Branden was formulating get-rich-quick schemes. He’d do anything to not work for his father’s roofing business. Today, it was selling some amazing comics they had found in a dumpster. 

“Who, who in their right mind would throw out this superb collection? This guy had to be insane,” Kurtis said while he dragged a bag full of comic books.

“Yeah, I gotta say the guy is probably more crazy than you,” Branden teased.

“You know, I probably should be offended by that, but I’m not. If I didn’t have most of these, I’d never let you sell them. I don’t care how desperate you are for cash.” 

The duo walked beneath the canopied strip mall walkway, they passed 25 cent children rides shaped like rocket ships, park benches full of people and storefronts (most of which were now abandoned). Branden paused and looked into the dark glass of one of the stores. 

“I wonder what they do with these empty stores,” Branden said into the glass. Kurtis looked around and waved awkwardly at some girls, his own attempt at humor. 

“Yeah,” he said distractedly, surveying the parking lot and beyond that a small pond glowing in the cool light and further down, brown unkempt gardens hanging over a dry fountain (a relic of Wistaria’s best years). “You know, sooner of later, this mall is going to be condemned. It’s basically empty now.” 

“You’re right, but take a look around you, Kurt, people still swarm here. It’s ridiculous!” 

They continued to walk. A group of a girls overcrowding a picnic table called out to Branden. He waved halfheartedly. 

“C’mere Cody,” one of the girls insisted, “we’ve got food! What’s that loser got that we don’t?” 

“Maybe intelligence?” Kurtis offered. The girls gave him contorted looks of anger; however, they were too disappointed they’d been ignored by Branden to continue harassing Kurtis.

“Hey, lookit that,” Branden said idly while pointing to a Missing poster on the stonewall of the strip mall. They walked closer for a better look. Kurtis set down the sack with a grunt. 

On the poster, a black-and-white granular photo of a pale girl with dreadlocks was prominently displayed beside the word missing in giant red block letters. Kurtis pointed to the girl’s name, 

“Yeah, Maelle Ion. She graduated last year. She was the girl always hanging around Mr. Helmsley– until he got fired.” 

“I bet he killed her,” Branden joked. Kurts gave Branden a dry look. 

“If anything Leviathan got to her first.” Kurtis then directed Banden’s attention to a Hydra that had marked the stone beside the sign.

“She’s kinda pretty,” Branden ventured. 

“Maelle was one of those art kids, or whatever. She was always doing weird stuff. She probably just packed up and left. She was like that. I think I heard she ran away from home a lot.”

“If you think it weird it must be pretty bad,” Branden laughed. 

“Very funny, Brando, I’ll have you know what I do isn’t weird, it’s science.” 

“If that’s what you want to call it. Who’s that behind her in the picture?” Branden asked squinting. He tried to make out the fuzzy lines of the person in the background. Kurtis stood on his tiptoes and looked with equal earnestness. 

“I can’t make it out, the picture is too pixelated. You know, I just sent away for a program that could adjust that so it was way clearer. You can hardly make out Maelle in that photo,” Kurtis waved his hand in disgust of poor quality images, picked up the sack of comic books and began to walk towards an empty picnic table. 

“Hey, wait!” Branden called out while tearing the poster from the wall. Kurtis had already begun unloading the motley comic books onto the lopsided table. The wood was grainy and splintered along the edges of the seats. Once painted blue and yellow, the colors of the Wistaria High School Serpents, it was now grey with specs of the old paint and ringlets of mold. 

“What did you take that for?’ Kurtis asked once his friend had sat down. Branden still examined the picture intently.

“You think you could clear up this picture so I could see who that is?” Branden asked. 

“What for?” Kurtis asked. His disinterested tone almost swayed Branden’s curiosity. Some kids came over to look at the comic books. 

“I’m just curious, alright?” Branden angrily folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. 

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. The software should be here soon,” Kurtis said. 

“Good.” Branden’s composure eased. 

Suddenly, Kurtis said, in between telling potential buyers the approximate prices of various editions, “What the hell was she doing with Isaiah Abel?”

“Wistaria”

The Crocodile 

The lights at night were nice. Calm. Smooth. The ions slid down the streetlight like a stripper down her pole. It was delicious. The smoke from my cig crawled on after the source, like drips of ice cream in zero gravity. The caustic light belted down. Relentless. It was some sexy demon coming to get us, sex us and turn us all to flame. Hell yeah, that’d be one crazy annihilation.

I went to Big Slurp. Wolf and Whisper were together over by the Community Center. I waved at them, they waved back. I was sitting around with Isaiah and a couple of girls I wasn’t familiar with. Isaiah was quiet, he had a bruise under his eye. 

“Getting into fights, Isaiah?” I asked. 

“Fuck off,” he muttered. Isaiah was always walking around with bruises or something. 

“Hello, Crocodile,” I heard Maelle say behind me. I turned and she had her polaroid camera raised and ready to take a picture. 

“Maelle hanging around Big Slurp? What a surprise-” 

“Tres surprise! But I’m not here for the malted milkshakes.” She winked and took my picture.  

“Still taking useless polaroids?” I asked. One of the girls I was with brought me a Coke from the stand. Girls always did that kind of thing for me. I was sitting on one of the green picnic tables. Maelle walked over and stood in front of me, her hips rest on my knees.

“They’re opposite of useless. I’m recording important things here,” Maelle assured. 

“Is that so? Besides me, what kind of important shit is going down here?” I laughed and nudged her shoulder.

“Oh, yeah, really, like Wistaria is what most people would consider normal.”

“We aren’t that strange, are we?” I asked rhetorically. She winked and sat beside me. I tried to snatch the photograph from her. She waved a naughty finger at me. 

“No, no, no Croco, this is my art project,” Maelle giggled. 

“You know I hate getting my picture taken,” I protested, implying I should be compensated. 

“And how I vow to cure you of your dolor! I have a wonderful solution for the crocodile in the grass too shy for image replication.”

“And what’s that, Maelle?” I asked. I saw her eye my shoulders, my arms, my face.

“Take many, many, photos of you. I already have fifteen, and you only know about two.” 

“I hope you aren’t showing anybody these,” I warned.  

“I could be. Question,” the girl said. 

“Yeah?”

“Why do they call you Crocodile?” She asked.

I replied,  “Because I control the sea.”

“Oh, do you? Well, what sea do you control? The pond near the farmlands or the pond near Broken Glass?” Her intent was to playfully offend me.  

“Broken Glass? You aren’t still hanging around with Mr. Helmsley are you?” 

“What’s it to you?” Maelle asked protectively and stood up. I didn’t want her to leave. 

“Nothing to me. He got fired for a reason, that’s all.” 

“You reptiles have got some way of showing affection.” She squinted and blew a kiss. 

“Maelle…” 

“See you in Chemistry tomorrow, love.” She slipped the photograph in my hand and sauntered away. I looked at it for a long time, not hearing the music or the crowd or Isaiah talking. Then she disappeared. 

“Wistaria”

September 27th 2007 

8:20AM

Early visit from Maelle. I was digging through the closet when I heard Barney barking outside the door. How strange, I thought, his muzzle shouldn’t be off. Maelle was petting him on the porch. 

“I found him,” she said. I could tell something was wrong. 

“Where?” I asked, letting her in and scanning the horizon. She was here earlier than usual. 

“I found him walking by the garden. What was he doing so close to town?” Maelle asked severely. 

“He’s just a dog,” I said. “He doesn’t know.” 

“Mr. Helmsely, something very exciting happened. Exciting in both good and bad ways.”

“Uh-oh, they didn’t–” I hesitated at the thought. Their power… growing. 

“No! No! It wasn’t them, it was someone else,” she said. 

“Who? What did they do?” I sat down and drank some of my orange juice. Barney was all wet and leaning on my knee. 

“Here,” she said. She handed me a photo she had taken. It was Hydra, spray painted onto a brick wall. However, Hydra was hardly distinguishable due to another color of spray paint having covered the symbol. 

“Who did this?” I begged, thinking first of the enormous power within that one small action. 

“No one knows. Everyone thinks it’s bad news,” Maelle explained. This at first struck me as odd. Why bad news? Then, of course, Leviathan would have to blame someone. 

“Hmm, this is bad news. Bad news, indeed. Maelle, I am going to be very severe. We cannot continue this experiment. I’d like you to cease all connection you have to the investigation…” 

“But, Mr. Helmsley. Be reasonable. They have no–” 

“Never mind if they no proof or otherwise. Dear, God, Leviathan angered is as dangerous as teasing a bull. You’re not safe, you must promise me to look no further into Leviathan,” I begged. 

“I don’t even know anything. You’ve been so sparse with–” 

“For your own good! Now that I’ve banned you from it, your curiosity may get the better of you–” 

“I didn’t do anything. Even Leviathan has a code of morals, Mr. Helmsley.” 

“Not really,” I said bitterly. I remember too many things and things so close. How could Maelle ever understand? “When did this happen?” 

“They found it yesterday–at night. That’s even stranger. There’s no witnesses because… it was at night.” 

“Who could have– do you think? Could have it been one of their own?” I asked and immediately began to shuffle through old notebooks and things in a box. I had taken it out to look for the camera yesterday. 

“I know you didn’t do it, Maelle. But that’s not good enough. And as much as I’ve enjoyed working with you, it’d be best if we ceased this transaction of information until further notice. It isn’t safe. They’ve been watching us very carefully, I know it. They have more eyes in these hills than there are crickets. They’ll just say it was us because they need a reason to get rid of me. It isn’t you, Maelle, it’s me. And I’ve tried so hard to keep you out of danger…” 

“Danger? Mr. Helmsley, you never told me why you’re so adamant about this. I know it’s…” 

“Maelle, you have to leave. You have to. Right now, I’m so sorry I put you in this position. Deny ever knowing me. I don’t think it will be safe— burn everything you have. Burn every letter and picture. This project is over. I never thought it’d come to this… I can’t believe Isaiah would… I mean, his father… obviously.” 

“Who? What are you– Mr. Helmsley, please!” 

“Goodbye, Maelle.” And I pushed her out the door. I sent Barney to watch after her. I sometimes put too much faith in that dog. 

 

2:30PM 

I’ve had some time to reflect upon our findings. And though I’ve told Maelle to destroy all things relevant to this case, I am in no way inclined to do so myself. I am only going to dispose of that which ties me to Maelle. If they were to ever come in here… they’d find… It’s too unbearable to think. If they were to find I had any connection to her… I should have been more careful. There just isn’t any way I could have gained so much knowledge about Leviathan without outside help. Perhaps in a couple months when all this dies down… then I can contact her. Until then, I’ll have to mull over the information I’ve collected already. 

 

6:01PM

It isn’t strange for Barney to be absent of my home for this long of a time. However, with reason developments, I fear this could mean the worse. Every noise, every shudder, every creak, I think it’s Isaiah and he’s coming for me. And to think… he and I used to be so close… what could have changed a man so drastically? I heard power does horribly sadistic things to people– but in the name of God? In hopes to prevent some kind of Apocalypse? The past is the past… his grandfather received those revelations… I mean… so much time has gone by. And when is worth the human price? When is it alright to kill in order to keep Leviathan strong. Goddamn it, I never agreed with that. 

If I can figure out the tunnel system, perhaps I can find the meeting place. If that be the case, I’ll have to do some investigative work of my own.   

 

 

William Helmsley