Mason Owens Woods

Craig checked his arm. There was no healing mark, or wound, or scar. The drunken sensation vanished. The stench of weed was missing too. He watched Linda Blair on the screen one moment, and the next, he was riding his Huffy bicycle down the bike path in Mason Owens Woods. The overhead Shagbark, hickory, and oak tree limbs draped him in shade. He caught a white-tailed deer shoot through a pair of trees. He kept pedaling, ignoring nature. His destination was Lake Jacomo. He wanted to swim, even if it was alone. Neil and J.J. were at Boy Scout camp, and he was alone right now for the summer.

His mother thought he was riding in the neighborhood, but he changed course without telling her. Three blocks of the same street was repetitive, but this bike course was much more adventurous.

I’m not sure what memory this is. I can’t remember.

He looked around, sensing a person was following him. Craig slammed the brakes and listened. The ruffle of leaves and the soft breeze circled him, and he trained his ears harder, trying to hear his stalker’s mistake. Perhaps the follower would step on a twig or crunch over a patch of leaves. After a time, he gave up and continued to ride his bike. But there it was again. The roll of his tires against the path, it was matched by another set of tires.

He hit the brakes again and turned around sharply. “Is anybody there?”

Craig was scared. Tina advised him not to venture out too far from the house. There were strangers out there, she warned, and he was not to talk to them.

What if a stranger really was following him?

He pedaled in retreat, not knowing how to escape. Craig looped back the way he’d come. The matching roll of tires didn’t change.

He peddled faster.

Craig shouted, his voice cracking, “Leave me alone!”

Then his bike chain snapped. He tipped over and slammed onto his side.

With the rush of pain arriving, now he remembered this memory.

“Ahhhhh!”

He cried so loud it hurt his own eardrums. Craig bounced three times onto the bike path. He turned his ankle and slammed his knee into the pavement. A large gash bled from his knee. He couldn’t move his right leg. The ankle was broken. The agony was threefold in a child’s body, a paralyzing endeavor. He wept, unable to move, his back flat against the pavement, saying, “Help me, help me, help me, help me, help me!”

The mysterious stalker didn’t show up to nab him. The wind brushed on the gash, and it burned in increasing conflagrations. “It hurts,” he complained to nobody. “Ouch, it hurts, it hurts.”

And then there she was, standing above him—Alice Denny. The woman had regressed from blooming post-puberty woman to an eight-year-old. Her hair was fashioned in two ponytails, fastened by lady bug hair clips. She wore purple sweatpants and a purple top. Alice was the one following him on bicycle. Ironically, the bicycle was purple too and had a banana seat. Pink streamers shot out the handlebars, wildly whipping in the wind.

She was shocked, viewing the blood. It stole what bravery it required to confront him. She stood still as a statue. The only things moving were her widening eyes and jaw that steadily dropped. Finally, she managed a question. “A-are you okay?”

He stifled his initial response to cry some more. She wanted to help—to be his friend. He sensed now that he was thinking through an adult mind. “I’ll go tell somebody,” she relayed, speeding off for help. “Hold on, Craig!”

Before anything else happened, he was now sitting in his backyard. How he got there, it was blink-instant and without explanation. He rested on the patio furniture in his backyard with his bad ankle propped on a plastic bucket, his foot wrapped in a splint. He was bored and punished to house arrest. It was two days after the bike accident. Alice eyed him through the notches of the wooden fence. Craig noticed her but didn’t say anything. That’s when she started randomly throwing things into the yard—a beach ball, baseball, aluminum bat, football, and then a yo-yo.

“What are you doing?” he asked, looking over the array of toys. “Hey, come over here.”

He was desperate for company and was delighted when she raced around the other side of the fence and opened the gate. She was eager to play. She too was experiencing a droll summer.

Craig smiled at her, and this was the adult in him. “I’m bored.”

He knew those two words would send her into game mode. Alice picked up the aluminum bat and politely handed it to him. “You swing, I’ll pitch the ball. You don’t even have to get up out of your chair.” She raised her voice to a shrill, putting her entire body into the statement. “Knock it out of the park!”

This was the beginning of their friendship. Craig loved this moment. But he never thanked her for saving him in the woods.

And now was his chance.

 

 

Dr. Krone walked the bike path in Mason Owens Woods in a calm swagger. Again, he couldn’t get enough of the summer air. The present winter was miserable in Indiana. Bitter cold. It was hard to wake up from bed, it being so frigid. He wanted to stay under the toasty blankets and sleep the winter away until spring. Summer and spring were perfect, he kept telling himself. But fall was the best season, especially with the rain. It wasn’t anything an umbrella couldn’t fix. It brought people closer together, the rain.

But the mind is the greatest escape, he thought.

He sighed, enjoying the wistful moment by keeping his easy pace down the path. “I’m very comfortable in here, Mr. Horsy. I think I’ll stay for a while.”

Nobody utilized the bike path. He willed them to go away. He could do that.

He could do a lot of things in Craig’s mind.

Dr. Krone completed his trek. Stopping, he bent down onto his haunches. “Ah,” he announced jubilantly, “fresh air!”

He dipped his two fingers in Craig’s spilt blood and tasted it.