Contrite, we both held our tongues.
“You can’t! I know you can’t!”
I thought she was about to cry, but she held it together enough to continue screaming at us—and she was screaming. I knew we were far away from the hospital yet, but I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone heard her.
“Tripp is dead—he’s dead, and he’s not coming back—and that means that my life is going to change a lot, and I’m horrified by it. I can’t imagine where it’s going to go from here—I can’t imagine doing our work, or living in our house, or feeding our cats, because everything is ours. Not mine, ours. Only now it’s not anymore. It’s mine.”
She must have heard herself, and what an explosion the outburst had sounded like, because she lowered her voice—even though it meant she had a harder time controlling it. “I don’t want everything to be mine. I liked it when everything was ours. And that’s my problem—not anyone else’s. But this? What you’re pulling here? You could be making a very big problem for a lot of other people. You are turning something loose that you can’t control—that no one can control. And you think that’s not a problem?”
“It has the potential to be a problem,” I admitted, using my best calm-the-hell-down voice. “But right now, it also has the potential to be a very good thing—don’t you see?”
“He can fix this,” Benny said.
“So you think.”
“So I think, too.” I put an arm out to her, and at first I think she was afraid I was going to hug her, because she recoiled out of reach. I was only trying to steer her out of the woods, but I withdrew the gesture anyway.
“Think of it. He can flush out your husband’s murderer. He can put all the ghosts back to bed. You’re a scientist, aren’t you? You could study him. Interview him. This thing—this creature—he could answer questions that could make your career, or enrich your philosophy.”
“He’s been given permission to destroy.”
“He’s been given permission to live.”
Just then my phone began to buzz heartily against my hip bone. I popped it off its plastic clip and pressed a light on the side, revealing my caller’s number. I didn’t recognize the digits. “Let’s start walking back to the road, while I see who this is.”
I flipped the lid and held it up to my face, assuming the rear of our short train as we began to push our way back towards open ground.
“Hello?”
“There you are. Don’t you ever answer this thing?”
I held the phone away from my face and glanced at the display. This was his third attempt. I’d never noticed the first two.
“Sorry. We’ve been busy over here. How’s the date going?”
“It went fine. She’s here now. Say ‘hi,’ Becca.”
In the background, someone gave me a disinterested “hi.”
“Yeah. Um. Why are you calling me? Where are you?”
“I’m at the battlefield.”
“What? Why? Why did you take your date to the battlefield, you creep?”
He laughed. “Because it was profitable.”
“Oh, do explain.” Ahead of me, Benny pushed aside a tree branch and it snapped back into my face. I caught it on my wrist and pushed ahead, following the bobbing lights. “It’s Jamie,” I told them.
“I’d gathered,” Benny said, not looking back. “Watch out for this one. Is this the way we came?”
“I think so. Got it, thanks. We should be almost back to the road.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re at the Bend still. Why did you take your date to the battlefield?”
“Because I’m being paid to. We went to Tony’s for supper—”
“Ooh, good pick,” I interrupted.
“I thought so, yeah. Anyway, we were there and this guy sneaks up behind me. It’s that reporter—the one who was looking for us yesterday. He offered me fifty bucks if I’d come out to the battlefield and let him interview me for an exclusive. This is his phone, by the way, in case you were wondering about the number.”
“I was, thanks. So you agreed to go back out there for fifty bucks? What are you, crazy?”
“No. I held out for three hundred.”
“Three hundred?”
“He was paying out of his own pocket, man. That was all he had in his wallet after paying for supper.”
“Good of you to leave him that much.”
“I do what I can.”
A creeping discomfort worked its way into my head as I dodged a stump and ducked another leafy branch. “Jamie, I don’t think you should be there. I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”
“We’re not—” He stopped, and it sounded like he was answering a question asked by someone else. “We’re not anywhere close to where we were, the other night. We’re not out by the house or anything. We’re over by the Tower again. There’s a news SUV here, and a cameraman, and that Nate guy.”
“Nick, wasn’t it?”
“Nick, that’s right.”
Somewhere on his end, I heard a faint retort: “You can call me whatever you want as long as you smile for the camera.”
“I remember him,” I said. “But look, can’t you do this anywhere else? The front of the park, in front of the sign? At the visitors’ center? Someplace else?”
“He said that the station has a strict on-site policy.”
“The visitors’ center is on-site.”
“The visitors’ center isn’t as cool, though. He wanted to get as close to the scene of the murder as possible.”
“And he let you stop at the Tower?”
“Yes. I’m sitting on one of the benches right now.”
He was lying. I knew he was lying. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“No. Why would I?”
Because he needed the money, and three hundred dollars would probably cover the repairs his car so desperately needed, though he was too proud to admit it; or it would cover his rent and maybe the water bill too. He might go to greater lengths than he’d say—lengths that would get him bitched at by me.
“Shit, Jamie. You’d better not be lying.”
Benny craned his neck around. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s on the battlefield,” I answered. “Lying.”
“Why?”
“Long story. Jamie, get out of there. Bad things are afoot. Please? Do me a favor here. Tell him you’ve got to piss or something, and you need to go to the visitors’ center.”
“I’m in the woods, darling. Pissing requires no plumbing.”
“So you’re not at the Tower? The woods aren’t that close to the Tower, Jamie, you jackass. Leave. Get out. Now.”
“No. What? What is it?” After the first word, he wasn’t talking to me. It was someone else, Nick or Becca.
“I don’t like it, Jamie. Look, would you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Would you wait? Give us thirty minutes, and we’ll be out there.”
“What?” Dana had heard me, and was objecting. She’d just burst free of the woods and was stepping across the trimmed grass.
“The battlefield,” I told her. “Jamie’s out there.”
“He’s where?”
“The battlefield. Jamie, get out of there. Big things are coming your way.”
“Big things?”
“Big things with glowing green eyes. At least I hope so.”
I was distracted by the woods, but Dana pulled me out as she said, “Oh, great. Green Eyes isn’t dangerous, but you’re going to warn your friends about him. You’re all consistent.”
“Dana,” I started to scold her, then returned to Jamie instead. “Jamie, what’s going on out there?”
“Nothing, why?” But behind him, I heard commotion. Not violent commotion; it wasn’t loud commotion, even. Just…commotion. And a popping noise that made my stomach turn.
Maybe he dropped the phone, or maybe he was holding it against his chest for a second. “I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to go. Did you say you were coming out here?”
I stopped in my tracks. “We’re on our way. Jamie? Jamie?”
I stepped into open air, with no trees above me. It was invigorating—like a blanket had been lifted off my head.
“What’s he doing?” Benny asked, curious and a touch concerned.
“God knows. He hung up on me.”
“On purpose? Or did your phone just drop the call?”
“I don’t know.”
We stood together, there beside the road, aiming flashlights at each other’s chests.
“We’ve got to get out of here, don’t we? We’ve got to get to the battlefield.”
I nodded. “I think so, yeah. Something’s going on there. Something’s…”
“Something’s gone to shit,” Dana finished it. “Jesus, they never learn, do they?”
We started running.
The woods began to sing around us, croaking and chirping and thrashing with all the small things that had held silent while we were in the forest. Once free of the trees we sprinted, and it felt like they were cheering us on.
The car was farther away than I’d remembered. It was farther than I could easily dash in one headlong charge; but Dana and Benny either kept up or outpaced me, so I didn’t slow down.
No one passed us. No cars came from either direction.
For some reason, this added a sense of urgency to it all—like we were the only people in the world, and in the dark, and the ridges and the river were conspiring against us. The rocky shape of Lookout Mountain loomed above us, stretching itself to cloak us in its shadow. It’s a place covered with rock gardens, and tourist traps, and gift shops. Never before had I felt that it was ominous, or that it had something to say to me, personally.