G. Wright - Broken Things

He knew that his head didn’t work right since the accident. He had frequent headaches, and once had a brief nosebleed. The noise in his head varied in volume. Sometimes it would get so loud he thought his head would split, while at other times it become so soft that he could hardly hear it. He realized rather fast that the more physical he got the louder the noise, as though it strained whatever parts were going bad in his head. Why hadn’t his dad just let the tech replace them?

There were benefits. For a while he got new things to keep him entertained, as they tried to help him keep his mind off of the condition. He didn’t care. It just was, like needing to breathe and eat, and sometimes he could use it to get a new toy or video game. They let him watch TV all day long if he wanted to. He just had to stay out of the way. It would’ve been nice to replace the bike, but the look in his dad’s eyes made him think twice about bringing that up.

As the day went on he felt better, enough so that he felt he could leave the tent. But the heat of the day made it feel like it was an oven. Sometimes a breeze would come up strong enough to shake the tent, but it didn’t provide any comfort from the sun. In the daylight, the only noise beyond the wind and the water were the birds and bugs, and so many different kinds! He saw beetles larger than anything they had back at home, in every different color.

The state of the site filled him with despair. If his parents didn’t come back soon he would starve to death! Or worse, whatever had eaten all of his food would come back looking for more and eat him! Why would they leave him alone? They knew he was broken. It wasn’t fair. They were wasting their time trying to teach him some lesson that made no sense. The accident hadn’t been his fault. And he didn’t care if they never bought him another stupid bike. Maybe they wanted him to be afraid. If that was the case, he wouldn’t let them know. They would never do this to him again. They’d be lucky to drag him to the mall.

A sudden piercing cry from above made him to look up. High in the sky an eagle soared, not flapping his wings yet staying aloft as though it were the most effortless thing in the world. He’d never seen an eagle before. It soared so high he couldn’t make it out clearly, despite being the largest bird he’d ever seen. It seemed so much more powerful than other birds, flying beyond all of the others, as though removed from their lesser concerns.

The eagle could probably see where his parents were, if they were down the road. It could probably see the city! If only he could get that high! He needed to climb a mountain. Yet the very thought of climbing made his mind spin again. He watched the eagle until it too, like his parents, disappeared beyond the mountains.

Three days later Josh’s scraps of food ran out. Dirt and grime filled the tent from his entering and exiting, and it drew in every conceivable bug, when unfortunately he’d left the zipper on the flaps open. Earwigs hid under everything. He’d decided that if his parents weren’t coming back he would go out to find them. He resolutely stood by his decision that they wouldn’t have abandoned him. Therefore they had to be in trouble. They must’ve driven off the edge of the road, or crashed into a tree, or something. It was the only possible explanation that made sense. Not a single car or truck had come down the road the entire time.

He spent his days wandering around his small piece of the wilderness. He spent the most time by the river skipping and throwing rocks, but he couldn’t see the road, and between his head and the water he wondered if he could even hear a car if it approached. He wandered through the trees for a bit, always careful to keep the camp in sight. He found a branch that made a good sword to fight trees with, threw rocks at a chipmunk until it ran away (he never hit it), and trekked half-way up a mountain before he’d got bit by a horsefly, ruining the experience. He even saw a few deer pass by. They stared at him curiously, and traipsed away, unconcerned by his presence.

He felt things changing in his head though he couldn’t tell what exactly was happening. Maybe things were slowing down or wobbling. He vowed to stay true to what he’d told his dad. He would fix himself. There had to be a way. They hardly ever let him on the tablet computer, but there would be something on the internet. He’d study and learn what he could do. Too bad there weren’t computers in the woods, he could’ve got started.

Each night went by much the same. He would hear creatures outside his tent, rummaging through the garbage of what had once been his food, the stuff not worth picking up, searching for scraps they had missed. Josh prayed that whatever was out there wouldn’t try to get into the tent for what he had. Once one of the animals actually put its nose against the tent and sniffed, rubbing against the fabric as though trying to decide if getting in would be worth it. It sounded small, like a fox or raccoon. He’d dug through the boxes his mother had left, but all he had were spare clothes. They hadn’t even packed him a flashlight. It made his nights nearly unbearable.

Evening came and his stomach felt unbearably empty. He had one can of soda remaining, but he decided to save it for breakfast. But there was something else, tonight felt different. It felt just as uncomfortable as the other nights, but he sensed a new element. As the sun dipped behind the mountains and the shadows grew longer it felt as though something were watching him.

It grew too cold and dark to remain outside much longer. He turned, sensing something, or someone, in the trees. He could nearly look right at where he could feel the eyes, but he only saw trees and brush and shadows.

“Hello?” he called out, but nothing answered.

He couldn’t tell if anything were out there. Could it be another deer? His mind played tricks on him every night, making monsters out of shadows until he would rush to the tent and hide in his sleeping bag. Fortunately nothing had eaten him yet. But the shadows tonight felt alive, sinister, much more than usual. Sometimes he just knew when he was being watched, like feeling eyes on the back of his head. This felt much like that. The shadows seemed… real. If the wind would die down, and if he could separate noises from the river and his head, he thought perhaps he could almost hear breathing.

If it were, it belonged to someone sicker than him, or not human, someone that had bad lungs, rasping like a smoker needing to cough. Every hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he felt an overwhelming need to run. But where would he run to in the dark? He had nowhere to go. And how did it get dark so rapidly? As he’d sat there staring, watching for movement, the night blanketed his campsite until even the shadows were indiscernible from one another, and the tree tops were black silhouettes against a midnight blue sky.

Josh forced himself to walk as nonchalantly to his tent as possible. Don’t show fear. That’s what they tell you about animals. What if it’s not an animal? Don’t think about that. Just… walk… It’ll be gone in the morning. It’s just shadows, nothing more.

Hiding in the tent felt a little safer, if only in the fact that he wasn’t lost in the woods. Well, technically he knew he was lost. Otherwise he’d be home in his warm bed. His ears strained against the natural cacophony of the environment, trying to separate and discern different sounds, praying to not really hear anything. The high-pitched whine from his head fought to blanket out everything else. Perhaps the damage was a blessing, giving him the bliss of ignorance.

No. There was something there. It sounded like… something pulling itself across the ground.