"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 41

Jeremy never could quite bring himself to leave the road in favor of venturing, at random, through the massive forest. Even with the lake as his potential guide, and the ability to hug the shoreline as a means of maintaining direction, he nonetheless can’t seem to set foot in that direction. But of course, as soon as the others return to Otherwise and Emily catches wind of what he’s up to, she’s blowing up his phone, which means he is forced to fake doing so anyway.

“Oh my God! Are you crazy! You yourself said it takes an hour to drive!” she practically howls into the phone, “best case scenario, what is that? Six hours or something? Eight?”

He laughs and downplays her hysteria, nimbly bending the truth maybe a smidgen by insisting, “I plan on just following the shoreline of this lake. Trust me, darling, there has to be a faster way.”

“Well…okay,” she reluctantly tells him, “but…I’m giving you an hour. Two hours. It’s…five minutes to one now, and if I don’t see you by three, I’m sending out the search party.”

“Fair enough, fair enough,” he tells her.

But the truth is, he passes the marina while speaking with her, which means he is far beyond the lake now. And, yeah, he could always backtrack slightly, thereby stick to the script he’d sold Emily. But despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s still convinced there must exist some shorter route they’ve missed, through the woods. Even if it’s just a dirt lane that’s almost impossible to see from the road, or something, this route has to be there. And of course, at any moment, he can simply make a right turn into the forest, roll the dice on finding his way back to home base. If nothing else, the moon is bright tonight, he can use this as his…

Wait a second, it occurs to him at some point, the moon is bright tonight? Yes, the moon is bright tonight. Clearly, he has been out here way longer than intended. His thoughts have seriously gotten away from him. Dark falls swift and early this time of year, but still, that’s pretty damn remarkable. After wrestling with the notion for a good long while, he finally breaks down and attempts calling Emily, yet it would appear that service is down out here. At any rate, he continues walking along Stokely Farm Road, so if she’s serious about coming to find him, he should be easy enough to spot. For now, he settles upon sending her a vaguely reassuring text.

Be home soon, darling. I recognize some of these landmarks already.

He is beginning to not feel quite so chipper and optimistic, however. His legs are rubber, and hunger has crept in. He would die for a drink of water right about now. And though a handful of cars have passed during his time out here, coincidentally of course he has seen none in quite some time, during this bleakest point of his journey. It figures. Just as the houses have also thinned out, and he can’t recall the last time he’s spotted any of these, either.

It’s the appearance of the next which finally convinces him something is seriously awry. Stokely Farm Road is nothing if not hilly out this way, in fact it’s nothing but a series of endless rises and dips, though maintaining a more or less straight line west. Yet after he trudges through this series of three medium sized peaks, just tall enough to where he can’t quite see the tops while at the bottom, with a flat, harvested field to his left and the forbidding, endless seeming forest on his right, he reaches this brick, ranch style home, featuring a newly tarred driveway, at the top of the third such hill. Sunken ever so slightly back into those woods. A silver sedan parked there, and a large white pickup truck beside it. Not a single light on in the house, however, although this isn’t what gives him pause, as he stands debating whether to approach and knock on the door anyway. Rather, it’s the doubt creeping in, as he begins to wonder, haven’t I already passed this house?

This only leads to a loop of further, additional doubt, the kind which merely gets worse the more one dwells upon it. Because he can’t quite recall now whether he viewed this house during this particular trip, or if he’s thinking of a previous outing. Or maybe just confused and not even remembering this exact house at all, rather one that just sort of looks like it.

He stands in the road, in front of the brick home for a good two or three minutes. Extracts his phone, even, for a quick consultation, and observes that, incredibly enough on both fronts, the time shows almost nine p.m., while according to the map he’s barely budged at all. Possibly most disturbing, though his last text to Emily shows as having been delivered, she hasn’t responded. Then, upon turning around to face the way he came, it’s at this moment that pure dread sets in. Maybe he’s hallucinating, due to exhaustion and lack of food, but he could swear he sees the moon and starlight shining off the lake, meaning he hasn’t covered much distance whatsoever. How the fuck is this possible?

Attempting to sound as jocular as he can, he types out a quick message to Emily again, and then another for good measure to Denise. Both contain the same basic content, turning it into a joke that he’s been waiting by the side of the road all this time. The latter for example reading where the hell is your sister, heh heh? Tell her I’ve been twiddling my thumbs at this damn marina for HOURS! Good thing they have beer…

And then he starts walking back in that direction. Something tells him any other course of action at this hour would be suicide.

This reluctant retreat will swiftly assume a dreamlike haze. His head is pounding by the time he makes it back to the marina, as every footstep reverberates in his skull. It took an impossible seeming two and a half hours to make it back to this point — which makes no sense, on a few different levels, though he can’t think clearly enough to sort that out at the moment.

There’s a heavy fog rolling in off the lake. Even so, though the marina itself is closed, he’s certain there must be an all-night fisherman or two in the vicinity, one he can flag down if drifting into view. For the meantime, though, he intends on resting here. Even what should be less than an hour walk home, through the known route of the cemetery and abandoned road and forest, is just too much to contemplate at the moment.

Drifting into the half mud, half gravel parking lot, he realizes it’s gotten quite a bit colder. The breeze blowing across the water surely doesn’t help. He muses with a smirk that the yarn he’d tossed into a trash can, the first time he passed this place, might be of some use in knitting a sweater. Assuming he had a needle and the knowledge and all the energy in the world, that is.

As it stands, he’s left popping some change into a soda machine in front of the building, then doing so again. He drifts around to the backside of the building, and though there is a bunker type freezer on this patio, it’s also chained shut. Well, if starving to death days from now, and in desperate need of ice cream bars, he could always smash the glass. For now, however, he dashes off another text to Emily, explaining exactly where he is. Even though one of those red exclamation marks immediately pops up, indicating that it failed to send from here. The same happens when he attempts it again. Oh well, he can always try some more later, he reasons. He yanks off two of those vinyl table umbrellas, wraps himself in these, and passes out in one of the chairs.

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