Sara Reinke - Backwoods

I can’t feed her soda and a Snickers bar for supper, he thought, frowning. He knew he needed to get her back to the apartment. Even if Suzette had been too preoccupied fixing supper to notice Alice slipping out the door, she’d have noticed her absence by now. If she hadn’t then Moore sure as hell would whenever he returned shortly from the lab for his dinner.

It’s their special time, Suzette had told him of Moore and Alice dining together at night. Or some such bullshit.

He finally settled on a package of peanut butter crackers. He had no idea what kinds of food Alice liked, outside of Cheerio’s, which she apparently ate every morning for breakfast. Every kid likes peanut butter, though, he thought, punching the button and watching the thin metal coil slowly rotate, dropping the crackers with a heavy plop into the dispensing trough at the bottom of the machine. Don’t they?

Digging through the measly remains of his spare change, he also put together enough to get a can of 7-Up. It’s caffeine free, I think, he told himself with a studious frown. He wished Dani was there to ask. She has kids. She’d know these things.

“Have you seen Alice?”

The rec room had been empty upon his arrival, the jukebox dark and quiet, the pool tables vacant and the voice from behind startled him. He turned in surprise and found Suzette at the threshold, a somewhat frantic sort of look on her face.

“Alice,” she said again, because he must have blinked at her stupidly for too long for her liking, and she frowned, planting her hands on her hips. “She’s gotten out of the apartment somehow and run off. Have you seen her?”

He glanced guiltily at the soda and crackers then shook his head. “No. Sorry.”

“Well, if you do, please come find me, okay?” she asked. “Edward’s panicking. He’s over at the lab building right now, probably tearing it up from end to end looking for her. He said something about her getting in there, figuring out the access code somehow.”

“Uh, sure.” He shrugged. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

She was too distracted to offer anything sarcastic or snide in reply, turning instead on her heel and walking briskly into the hall again.

Hurrying, he carried the soda and crackers back to his room, only to find Alice asleep on his bed. Curled on her side, her knees drawn to her chest, her hands draped delicately by her face, she didn’t stir when he came through the door. Caught off guard, somewhat charmed, he nonetheless realized he was pretty much officially fucked.

“Alice.” Setting aside the snacks, he knelt beside the bed. “Alice? It’s time to get up.”

She didn’t stir and he stroked her hair back from her face. “Honey, you can’t sleep here. Your daddy’s looking for you. He has a gun and he’s already tried to kill me once with it.”

As he tucked loose tendrils of her dark hair behind her ear, he felt something coarse and out of place, hidden beneath her scalp. Curious, he leaned forward, pushing her hair further aside. She had a thick crown, enough so that when combed just right, it had hidden from view a narrow strip of scalp that that been shaved bald and exposed. It wasn’t until he parted her hair with his hands that he saw it clearly, a line of stitches closing a wound approximately two inches in length. It was still fresh enough to have blood crusted along the seam.

North of this, along the outermost edge of the shaved margin of scalp, he noticed a slight indentation in her flesh, a place where the hair had started to regrow, but had been likewise sheared at some point, because the new hair was only a few centimeters long. With a frown, Andrew brushed his fingertips against this peculiar depression. A thin red line bisected it, a scar from a now-healed incision.

What the hell? For a moment, he leaned away from the bed, reaching for the lamp on his nightstand. Hooking the lip of the shade with his hand, he flipped it enough to redirect the light in a broad pool against his bed, bathing Alice. Now he studied her head again with bewildered fascination, finding two more sets of the curious dimples and scars near the crown of her skull, another closer to her hairline and at least three near the cap of her pate.

It’s like the skull’s gone soft there or something, he thought. Or like it’s gone altogether.

“It’s where the medicine goes,” Alice said and he drew back, surprised to find her blinking dazedly at him.

“I… I’m sorry,” he stammered, awkward and abashed. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“That’s alright,” she said.

“What happened to your head?” he asked quietly. “What are those places?”

“I told you. It’s where the medicine goes.”

“What do you mean? What kind of medicine?”

She shrugged one shoulder, still laying on the other.

“Who does this to you?” he whispered, heartsick and stricken because he knew. Did your father do that, Alice? Oh, God, did that son of a bitch hurt you?

“Can I stay here with you, Andrew?” Alice asked. “Please?”

He nodded, slipping his hand against hers, squeezing her fingers gently. “Yes. Of course you can.” Raising his hips, he leaned forward and kissed her brow through her hair. “I promise, Alice. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

“Oh, my God,” Dani gasped when he told her about the wound on Alice’s head, moved the girl’s hair aside so she could see for herself the grim evidence of past trepanning beneath the dark curls.

He’d fallen asleep like that, holding Alice’s hand as he sat beside the bed, resting his cheek against the crook of his elbow while the girl had dozed again, It wasn’t until Dani had knocked on the door that he roused.

“I brought you some supper,” she’d offered, looking somewhat sheepish as she’d held out a foil-covered plate between her hands. “It’s not very good. I’m not even exactly sure what it is. C Squad’s on KP tonight.”

The plate remained wrapped tight and untouched atop the TV set. “The poor thing,” Dani whispered, helping as he pulled the bedspread over, folding it in half so he could drape its warm folds over Alice’s diminutive form. “What are we going to do?”

Andrew met her gaze grimly. “We’re going to take her out of here. I’ve still got my backpack and you can get us some supplies. We’ll bundle her up in these blankets to keep her warm and take turns carrying her.”

“What? Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight—right now.” Even if the things he’d heard in the forest earlier, the people Alice had called the screamers were real, what choice did they have? “We can cut through the woods down to Highway 460 and head for the nearest town. If it’s not big enough for a hospital, it at least has to have a police station.”

“I can’t leave,” Dani said. “That’d be going AWOL. I could face desertion charges.”

“How? You wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, Dani.” He shoved his finger emphatically at the door. “Edward Moore’s been cutting holes in Alice’s skull for God only knows what sick fucking purpose. Major Prendick’s got to know about it. How could he not? And if he knows about it and he lets it happen, if he doesn’t do anything to stop it, then he’s just as sick and twisted and wrong as Moore is—and you have every right in the world to walk away.”

She looked at him, then down at the girl, visibly torn.

“Dani,” he pleaded. “Please. If Moore’s doing this to his own daughter, what’s he capable of doing to you? To any of us?”

Alice murmured in her sleep, burrowing more deeply beneath the folds of the comforter. At this soft, fluttering sound, Dani’s expression softened, and when she cut her gaze back to Andrew, she nodded. “Alright. Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be back.”