Word Count: 8,937
I lived the entirety of my life in the steaming humidity of Louisiana, leaving the swampy state only on two occasions. An uncle in Mississippi passed in 1980, and I went to attend his funeral. The only other time I crossed the borders of my home state was to attend my cousin’s wedding in Arkansas. I never really figured I had any reason to go anywhere else; everything I knew and everything I needed was here.
Now, for most people, Louisiana seemed about twenty years behind the rest of the country. Most folks down here were set in their ways, and these values were typically instilled in their children as well. Racism and segregation were still quite prominent in my home state. Blacks stayed away from whites and the whites stayed away from the blacks.
Several colored fellows worked on the farm, but I did not care for them much. I never did. One of them always whined about reparations and his forty acres and a mule. Why should I owe him reparations? My family was poor up until the last few decades. My ancestors did not own any slaves, so I figured I owed them negros nothing. The only thing I owed them was a paycheck at the end of the week. Holiday, personal, and sick time were bonuses not rights.
Although I saw little change in race relations, or even the size of my town, I saw plenty of change in the forests. Kudzu vines took over acres upon acres of land killing everything in its path. It spread slowly, but it never stopped. Herbicides did not work and neither did fire. There was only one way to be rid of the engulfing plant. The roots had to be dug up, and this stuff rooted deep.
Areas where I used to hunt and play were now fields of vines. Snakes loved to nest in these areas, so it was always best to avoid them whenever possible. It was not easy to watch the country around me be overrun by the invading plant. Louisiana was flat enough without taking away all the forest lands. Some fool found the vine in China or something and brought it to the United States. The problem with the plant was that there were no animals and very few insects that fed on it here, so it grew unchecked. That damned idiot had no idea the plague he unleashed upon the southern states.
My father, a negro, a white fellow who worked on our farm, and I all spent the last week fighting back the vines with bush-hogs and controlled brush fires. It took a lot of work to keep the vines from overrunning our crops. Constant maintenance was required to keep the encroaching plant in check. If the problem continued to grow worse, we might need to hire some new hands just to deal with the vines. We did not turn a great profit every year, and hiring more workers would be a crippling financial slap in the face.
After showering that evening, I went downstairs where Momma and my sister had dinner ready. During the blessing, I could not keep my thoughts on the prayer. My mind drifted off to the days when my best friends, Scottie William, and I ran around playing in the woods. Much of that forest no longer existed, having been destroyed by the invading kudzu. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I almost missed the ‘amen.’
After I went to bed, I still could not get our childhood excursions into the woods out of my mind. Something within me clicked today as we fought the vines away from the corn fields. Something in my past wanted to come back to me. It was a sensation very similar to déjà vu. A memory was trying to resurface about something that happened in that forest, but I spent so much time romping around in the woods, it was impossible to pinpoint what was nagging me.
I tossed and turned all night. Normally I was a still sleeper, but when I woke up the next morning, my sheets were pulled loose and tossed around the bed. For the first few seconds after I awoke, I remembered my dream vividly. Before I was fully awake, I only remembered bits and pieces. By breakfast, I could not remember anything at all.
I spent most of that day driving the dirt roads that bordered our farmland. With it being early summer, the kudzu grew absolutely wild. We could not allow it to reach our fields, or we would never get rid of it. I found several places along our property that would be problems very soon. I called father on the CB radio to give him the locations where the creeping vines threatened our fields.
Tomorrow, we would have to spend the day cutting and burning the stuff. That meant taking even more people from their farming duties to fight away the increasingly problematic vines. If this kept up much longer, we might not be able to pull a profit this year. In my opinion, the state should be paying to deal with the problem. If it let the farms go under, Louisiana would go bankrupt.
All the while, that elusive thought nagged at me. I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Whatever memory was trying to resurface never made it from subconscious to conscious thought. I did not know how I knew, but I knew it somehow involved Scottie and William.
Could it be something we found? Could it be something we did?
The memory tried to break through, but I could not conjure up the images. It drove me crazy. By the time I got home for the evening, I was stressed out and the muscles in my neck felt stiff with tension. All I did was drive all day, but I felt like someone had taken me through the ringer.
My mind wandered all throughout supper, and I found Father snapping at me several times. He wanted me to detail the kudzu problem around our fields; I just could not keep my mind on the conversation. That elusive memory tried to push its way out of hiding but could not quite get there. Dad grew impatient with me, slamming his hand on the table once as I began to drift.
I finally managed to get the ungraspable thought out of my mind long enough to give Daddy the location of the problem areas and the areas that needed the most immediate attention. My thoughts were otherwise occupied while I drove, and I was not sure of my memories. I told Father everything I remembered. I knew Saturday morning I would have to drive the dirt roads around the crop land perimeter to double check what I missed today.
On Monday, we pulled six men in all out of the fields to help us cut up and burn the vines. The kudzu wanted to take over, and we would fight it back to the bitter end. At twenty dollars an hour the task was going to be very expensive. In addition to that, there were a dozens of man hours diverted away from their regular duties. That put us even further behind and we had to get this harvest in on time. We still had another entire crop to plant after this one. Having to hire six more hands was really going to nip at our profit margins.
That annoying thought never left me alone. For more than a week, I tried to remember. Call it paranoia, but I was sure something strange was at work. I did not know what my two childhood friends did these days. I did not even know if they still lived in the state. Whatever it was my mind would not let me remember, I was sure they were somehow involved. I knew tracking them down was something I had to do.
I began to ask around. Scottie, William, and I shared a lot of other common friends. I still kept in contact with many of them. No one was sure what happened to them. The only information I did obtain always began with, “Well, I heard….” I uncovered no reliable information from anyone in town. The only thing I could think of to do was to call information and hope they were still in the nearby area.
It took me a lot of calling around, and I knew I would run up one hell of a phone bill, but I had to find them. After days of calling, I located my friend Scottie. He moved to Baton Rouge where he ran a modest but successful restaurant. William, I eventually found out, was doing time in prison. Apparently, he went to jail shortly after moving away from here.
William was being housed in a medium security prison located only forty-five minutes from the house. I called the unit to find out about their visitation hours. Visitation was only held on Sundays, so I planned to go see him after church this week. I hoped he could help provide information on my obscured memories. Perhaps he would tell me something to dislodge the thought from its niche in my subconscious.
That Sunday after church, I filled my thermos with coffee, ate a few buttered biscuits with jam, and got on the road. I wanted to make sure I did not arrive too late. I could not wait another week before I got the chance to talk to him. In the meantime, I tried calling Scottie. I spoke to his answering machine once. Every time I called after that, I let the phone ring five times and then hung up. If the phone picked up on his end, I had to pay the long distance charges.
William was shocked to see me, but I was not surprised. We had not seen each other in more than a decade. I only got one hour to visit with him, so I got straight to the point. I told him how fighting the kudzu seemed to pry loose some hidden memory. He gave me a quizzical look when I told him I thought he and Scottie were somehow involved. William tried, but he could not come up with anything helpful to tell me.
I asked him if he remembered seeing or doing anything that I would want to forget. He assured me we never saw any UFO’s or experienced any paranormal events my mind would want to hide. He did say something about the kudzu though.
Recently, William had a dream the vines climbed up to his cell and tore the metal mesh from his window. I did not get to ask him about anything else before an officer informed him his time was up and escorted him back to his cell.
What was it with the kudzu? I lived around the merciless plant my whole life, so why now did it take on a deeper significance? Why was William dreaming about it? What correlation did the vine have to do with my locked memory?
During my drive home, I felt a churning in my gut every time I passed an area defeated by the broad-leafed vines. The plant held significance of some kind. I found out only several years ago that snakes terrified me. A run in with a six foot long cottonmouth water moccasin nearly scared me to death. If someone else had not been there hunting with me, I would have probably been bitten and died. I became paralyzed with fear, and my hunting partner shot the snake before it could strike.
I called and left one more message on Scottie’s answering machine the following Tuesday. This time, I stressed how important it was that I speak with him. I had to unlock this puzzle, this mystery that rushed in on me like a tidal wave. If they did in fact have something to do with my strange feelings, I had to know what it was.
I had no appetite, so I skipped supper that night. Instead, I drove around the perimeters of our fields trying to somehow dislodge my memory. The setting sun painted the clouds a beautiful orange. I was fixated on the sunset when a significant memory returned to me.
I remembered emerging from the forest when I was a child. Scottie and William were there with me. We were running, terrified, but I could not recall why. I did not remember being chased. I did remember being terrified. We ran out of the woods and did not stop until we reach Scottie’s house. We hid in the closet of his room for the rest of the night.
My recollection ended there. I could only conjure that little piece of memory. I knew there was more, but for now it was still locked away in the back of my mind. What occurred before we emerged from the forest gasping and terrified, I could not remember. The weeks that followed were also lost to me. Why that was I did not know, but I knew it was very important that I remembered.
The next morning I received a welcomed surprise as I had my morning coffee. The mailman dripped our parcels through the slot in the door. When Sis walked by, she gathered it up and brought it into the kitchen. I thumbed through the envelopes she gave me when I saw one stamped with a prison unit number. William mailed out a letter to me only two days after we talked. I ate as quickly as I could without being rude and then took my mail out to the front porch.
As I anticipated, William wrote that he thought of more after I left. He too recalled the three of us fumbling out of the marshy forest and running along a gravel road. William was certain that we were running from something, but he could not remember what. Also in his letter, he talked about hiding in Scottie’s house because we were terrified that something was going to get us. He apologized because he could not remember more than this. If he thought of anything more, he would write me again.
I tried to remember where it was, what forest we were in when the event occurred. If I could find the location, I might just figure this all out. I went to see William again the following Sunday. I asked him if he could recollect where the incident happened. William said he was trying to make himself remember, but the location would not come to him. He realized he had gaps in his memory just as I did, so William and I kept in contact through the mail during the week. I began to visit him every Sunday after church. We hoped that, by working together, we would figure out what happened on that day.
When I came home from work Wednesday, Sis told me I missed a call from some guy named Scottie. I began to lose hope that I would ever track him down. Scottie told Sis he was in Germany for the past two months and called me as soon as he listened to my messages. I tried to call him back that night but he did not answer. We played a game of phone tag for the next ten days. Finally, I caught him at home.
We talked for close to an hour, mostly about what we have been doing over the last ten years. Finally, I brought up the topic and asked him if he could remember anything. He thought about it for a while, and I tried helping him along by telling him what William and I remembered. For a while, we talked about other aspects of our childhood, and then Scottie thought of something significant.
He told me that running out of the woods did not ring a bell, but he did summon up the images of hiding in his closet. Many nights, Scottie was terrified of falling asleep. He said he remembered always feeling like something was watching him at night, something dark and evil.
That was not all. Scottie could not remember why, but to this day he felt ill every time he went near what we used to call Baker’s Woods. He said even talking about it gave him the chills. Whenever he went anywhere near that area, he always had that sensation of being watched.
That must have been the place. Baker’s Woods was only located about six miles or so from Scottie’s childhood home. It seemed an awful long way for us to run, but children do have that energy and vigor that adults do not. I supposed if we were terrified enough, we could have run that distance without stopping. What we were doing out there, none of us could remember.
I began to think that something intelligent intentionally placed blocks in our memories. I found it very difficult to believe we all three forgot everything that happened in Baker’s Woods and for the weeks that followed. I thought possibly, if whatever we experienced was traumatic enough, we might have blocked out the memories on our own. That seemed very unlikely though.
I remembered emerging terrified from the forest, and William recalled hiding in Scottie’s closet from something we thought followed us. Although he could not say why, Scottie said Baker’s Woods terrified him to this day. In bits and pieces, I began to put that period of time back together.
The following morning I was to run some errands. The ice box and pantry were nearly empty. Normally Momma and Sis did the shopping, but there were other things that needed to be done. Parts for some of the farming machines waited for me at the hardware store. The parts had to be special ordered, and they were supposed to be here several days ago. Everything seemed to want to work against us trying to get this harvest in on time.
It took me about half an hour out of my way, but I decided to drive by Baker’s Woods while I was out. I passed Scottie’s old house and knew I would reach my destination soon. No one must have bought the house after Scottie’s family moved out. The roof fell in and weeds cracked and destroyed the concrete driveway.
I found myself subconsciously slowing down as I proceeded along my way. A dizzying sensation came over me, and butterflies filled my stomach. It was a long time since I came to this part of the parish, and I found an unknown fear overtaking me. I did not care. I had to put that day back together, and nothing would stop me from reaching Baker’s Woods.
Three miles before reaching the edge of the aforementioned section of forest, I noticed that damned kudzu taking hold in the area. That terrible plant was no less than a plague in this state. The wet, humid weather of Louisiana provided the perfect environment to allow the vine to thrive. Nothing fed on the vine; it was like a demon unleashed upon the south.
I reached the remnants of the wooden fence that once marked the edge of Baker’s Woods, and chill bumps covered my skin. Several acres of the forest succumbed to the kudzu, but a large portion was still heavy forest. I knew the key to unlocking those lost memories must lay out there somewhere. I wished Scottie and William were here to take this step with me, but I was going to have to go at it alone.
I pulled my truck over to the side of the road and parked. Removing my hunting rifle from the rack in my back window, I loaded it and threw the strap over my shoulder. I filled my pocket with what shells remained in the box and locked up the truck. Hesitantly, I crossed the road and entered that terrifying forest.
Wandering around for hours, I tried to relocate some of the landmarks I knew as a child. So much changed over the years, I could not tell one location from another. After several hours, I found the most unusual things. Lying on the ground, as if waiting for me, laid three objects at the base of an ancient maple tree. All three were cut from precious stone. I saw two small obelisks and a grayish colored pyramid.
Stone collecting was a hobby of mine, so I recognized the three items in front of me. The obelisks were cut from aventurine, one blue and one green. The pyramid was by far the most valuable of the three. This object was cut from a large piece of flawless larvakite which is more commonly called Nordic Moonstone. I never recalled seeing these before, but something about them seemed too familiar.
I reluctantly gathered the three precious stone items. Each one of them carved with designs, with some sort of artwork I never before saw. Examining them for a few minutes, I tried to figure out a way to make them fit in my pocket. The obelisks were every bit of eight to nine inches tall. At the base, the objects stretched three inches from one side to another. They were simply too large to fit into the pockets of my pants.
I removed my sweat drenched T-shirt and wrapped the items in a bundle. I did not know what I was looking for, but these objects were not here by accident. They sat atop recently fallen leaves, so they must have been put there very recently.
I was a seasoned hunter and a rather damn good tracker. I searched for signs of the individual who placed the artifacts for me to find, but I saw none. I saw no footprints or any disturbed leaves on the forest floor. After a thirty minute search, I found no broken twigs or bent branches on the underbrush that indicated anyone came through here recently. I found no trails leading to or heading away from the area. There was absolutely nothing that indicated anyone but me was here for a quite a long time. That was not right, and it greatly disturbed me.
It was well past noon, and I had not even begun my work tasks for the day. I took the bundled objects under my arm and started back to the road. Another hour elapsed before I finally found the road and reached my truck. Giving up on the search, I went to town to take care of my errands.
Daddy was furious when I returned with the parts. One of the machines was out of commission without the new parts. Because of my extended delay, we lost a whole day of work. We paid the two guys who run the machine to fart around all day doing nothing more than busy work. I tried to tell Daddy that things simply took a lot longer than we expected, but that was not enough for him. He kept me up that night until I finished replacing the damaged parts.
The sun set four hours before I finally finished the work. I took a long, hot, soapy shower to get the grease and grime off of my body. I do not know what time I made it to bed, but I passed out as soon as I hit the sheets. Thirty minutes after sunrise, Daddy woke me up and told me to come down for breakfast. He was not punishing me for yesterday; he only expected me to get up and do my job today.
That was one long workday, and I was glad when quitting time came. Momma told me I got some mail, and that it sat on the lamp stand by the front door. Before washing up, I went to grab my letters. Two pieces were junk mail, but the third envelope had a large stamp of a prison unit number along with the facilities location. It was another letter from William.
In his letter, he asked me if I ever remembered calling him White Willie. I could not imagine why we would have referred to him that way. He stated in his letter that one of the Negro images in his dreams called him by that name, and it brought in for him a rush of memories and emotions. He swore that we all called him that once, but I only remembered ever calling him William or Willie, not White Willie. It was my guess that he was called that sometime while in prison and the Negro in his dream only brought that memory back to the surface. It made no sense for Scottie and me to call him that. It was only the three of us running together as kids, and all three of us were white. I read over the letter several times, but no memories resurfaced of having ever called William by that name.
Scottie may have had some Mexican in him somewhere, but he looked like a white guy with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and well tanned skin. William was about as white as they came. His blond hair, blue eyes, and greater than normal height made him look like a Viking. I had some American Indian in me, somewhere around one quarter, but it did not show in my appearance. It simply made no sense for us to call William, White Willie.
Everyone spent the week putting in overtime. That included Daddy and me. Five days passed before I went back out to Baker’s Woods. I tried thinking, I tried sitting and writing, and I tried driving the roads around the fields again. Nothing helped to jar my memory. Something happened, something Scottie, William, and I all three forgot.
What could possibly be so traumatic to make three of us block it from our minds?
Sunday, after church and dinner, I drove back out to that place. The thought of venturing into the forest again terrified me much more than it did a week ago. This time, I wore my Smith and Wesson .357 magnum in a holster on my belt. My hunting rifle hung down my back held in place with a leather strap. In an old backpack, I carried the three stone objects, some granola bars for energy, and three bottles of water. I stood at the edge of the forest for fifteen minutes before I finally made myself enter.
The sun blazed in the cloudless sky, yet the forest was darker than on a heavily overcast day. I had a keen eye, and I kept a good watch all around me as I walked. Although I could not see anything, I could not shake the feeling I was being watched. I heard squirrels running through the dry leaves. I even heard a deer gently snooping in the distance. Other than my own, I heard no other footfalls that indicated someone was stalking me.
Rather than wandering around without aim as before, I headed straight in the direction of where I found the artifacts. I had a keen sense of direction, and it did not take me long to find my week old trail. I followed that straight to the former resting place of those three objects. I found the stirring I created as I searched for the person who put the objects for me to find. My tracks around this small area were clear as day, but I still found no tracks from the one who placed the items of precious stone.
I walked more than a mile further into Baker’s Woods. Suddenly, I saw something very familiar to me. A large circular area, probably fifty feet in diameter, sunk in the center eight feet from the ground level. Squatting in the center stood an ancient oak tree. This tree was unlike any other oak I ever saw. At its base, the trunk of the tree was five feet in diameter but only four feet tall. Large, thick branches sprouted out from the trunk, curving slightly so they remained four feet off the ground all the way around. As the ground sloped upward, so did the thick branches. An odd array of thick branches snaked out from the tree’s center. This was the perfect climbing tree for the three of us back in the day.
I clearly remembered the three of us kicked back resting in the tree. We played around in the woods and, when we grew tired, we came here to rest. The oak was every bit as large as I remembered it. It did, of course, have fifteen years to grow since I last saw it. Although I remembered spending a lot of time hanging out on this tree, nothing significant came back to me. Whatever happened that day, it did not involve our favorite tree.
As I began to walk away, an obscure memory came rushing in on me. Although I knew it was only ever Scottie, William, and I playing together; I seemed to have vague memories of a fourth friend. We never brought any of our other friends out here because we did not want to let the location of our hangout becoming public. I knew something was wrong. I had a strong feeling of a fourth member of our group, someone the three of us blocked from our memories. I turned back to look at the tree once again.
The way the sun beamed through the treetops, contrasted by the shadows of the branches, filled me with a terrible sensation of dread. Looking at the branches of the old oak, I was sure there was one more child that ran with us back when. That must have been the memory we all subconsciously forgot. Something happened to that fourth friend, of that I no longer had any doubt.
I recollected us carving our initials one of the branches, so I walked back to the tree and searched for our markings. I saw my initials, Scotties’ initials, William’s initials, and the initials of one other person. The unknown set of initials were marked W-J. Could this friend also have been named William? There was absolutely no denying there was one more child who ran with us when we were young.
Who was this fourth person and why didn’t anyone remember him?
After looking over those initials for several minutes, something in the back of my head told me to alter my course to walk to the South-West. I still did not know what it was I was looking for, but I knew it would be in that direction. Memories only returned in small bits and pieces. My memory of the fourth child and what lie ahead of me continued to elude any clear thought.
Before I continued forward, I removed the rifle from my shoulder and scanned ahead using the mounted scope. For a brief second, I thought I saw a Negro dart from the cover of one tree to another. I watched for a while, but I did not see him again. I through the high powered rifle back over my shoulder and removed my six-shooter from its holster. The pistol would be much easier to fire on the spur of the moment. Firing the rifle took some time to aim.
I approached the trees where I saw that black fellow, but I could not find any tracks at all. I thought perhaps that Negro was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. It was probably only the result of seeing that fourth set of initials. I tried too hard to remember our other friend, and now I was seeing people who were not there.
Then again, it could have been the person who left the three objects in my path for me to find. I never knew anyone light-footed enough to move around the leaf covered forest floor without leaving some sort of a sign.
The underbrush began to grow thick as I walked, and wild blackberries plucked on the threads of my clothing. These blackberry bushes were really only that in name. The berries that grew on these wild, thorny bushes were no larger than a pencil eraser. These were much more bitter than the cultivated blackberries that grew around the house. I made it about half of the way through the thicket when I though I heard whispers coming from behind me. I turned to see and old black man standing at a distance.
“Hey, you,” I yelled. “Hey, who are you?”
The man gave me no answer. He did not seem to react to my words at all. The old Negro looked like he could be the grandfather of the boy I saw earlier. I yelled at him again, asking him who he was. Again, the man made absolutely no reply.
I slung my rifle from my shoulder and planted the butt against my shoulder socket. I did not plan to shoot the man; I only wanted to get a good look at him through my scope. I shuddered when I saw the man’s magnified face. Something about him seemed more familiar than it should. I did not know many colored fellows, and I knew none that old. Still, somehow I knew that I knew him. I lowered my fire arm because I did not want to make him think I was going to fire. Using a gun’s scope to look around was not an uncommon thing to see around here. You just do not keep the weapon trained on the other person for very long. It was best not to give the other person the wrong idea.
When I brought my weapon down, the man was gone. I must have scared him. That was not my intention; I only wanted to get a better look at him. I yelled out that I meant no harm and apologized for pointing my gun at him. I told him that I only wanted to get a better look at him. I never got any reply from the man.
I waited another five minutes to see if I saw the man again. Eventually I gave up and continued through to the other side of the berry thicket. Once on the other side, I looked back once more. The old man was no where to be seen.
I wondered if maybe there was a colored family living in a house somewhere in the forest. Very rapidly, a feeling of paranoia built inside of me as I realized I was being watched. Did these people know something? If they did live out here, they would know of anything strange. Everyone around here tended to be superstitious people, especially the blacks. If there was something supernatural happening around here, they would surely have plenty of stories to tell. I found myself hoping I could get the chance to speak with them.
With no others within view, I continued my walk through the forest. I wanted to carry my rifle in my hands, but I did not want to appear threatening. I left my revolver in its holster as well. Having one of my weapons at the ready would make me feel much more comfortable. With these light-footed coloreds running around, having a gun ready would make me feel safer. If one of them wanted to shoot me though, I would never hear it coming. Anyone who could move around the forest like that could easily get the jump even on a seasoned hunter as me.
Keeping too much of my attention on what was around me and not in front of me; I tripped over a large stone and fell. It took everything in me to hold back my screams. I broke my big toe, and it hurt like hell. If I was carrying my rifle in my hands, it would be broken as well. I fell hard to the ground, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. With my rifle in front of me, I would probably have broken some ribs in addition to my toe.
I rolled over in a seated position. I was not too surprised when I saw a man about my age, another Negro, standing a hundred-fifty yards away. He stood almost directly in the way of my path. The man closely resembled the two other colored fellows I saw earlier. He must be the father of the boy and the son of the old man. The resemblance was so uncanny, there was no doubt they were closely related. When I rose to my feet and dusted the dead leaves off my clothes, the Negro was gone.
Those people were beginning to scare me. Why were they taunting me like this? If their intention was to make me worry, they most definitely succeeded. I wondered if they were trying to get me lost, trying to keep me off track. Maybe they were trying to walk me until I passed out so they could rob me. This was a thousand dollar rifle. That was a lot of money for these back woods blacks. Folks like these lived the same way they did a hundred years ago. A thousand dollars would go a long way for them.
That made me wonder if the boy really did leave these engraved objects for me to find. They had to be worth several hundred dollars apiece, if not more. I could not imagine them giving up such valuable objects if they had any inkling of what they were worth. Surely even these back-woods coloreds would know the objects were valuable just because of their beauty and flawlessness.
I wondered if they in fact did plant the objects for me to find. Maybe they wanted to draw me so deep into the forest, they could kill me and no one would ever find out. The animals would pick my body apart long before anyone could find me. If they did mean me harm, I resolved that I would not make it easy for them.
I went back to my thoughts about what William said in his letter. He thought we called him White Willie when we were kids. I wondered if that fourth kid, the kid with the initials W.J. was a colored kid. If his name was William too, we might have called him Black Willie. That could help explain why we called William what we did. That man, the one around my age, could possibly be Black Willie. Perhaps that was why he seemed so familiar to me.
I still had no recollection of a fourth friend, and I found it hard to believe that I ever had a colored friend at all. Regardless, something strange was going on here. I did not want to leave this forest until I figured out what that was.
Walking to where I saw that middle-aged Negro, I began calling out in a regular speaking volume.
“Willie, Willie” I said several times.
As before, I received no reply. They were really starting to piss me off. I grew very weary of this game of hide and seek. The next time I saw one of them, I would not take my eyes off of him until we were face-to-face.
I knew I only had an hour or two before I had to turn back. I was not going to get caught here in these woods at night. I needed to reach my truck before the sun set. I picked up my pace at the cost of making more noise. Trotting through the woods, I again found no tracks or footprints left behind by that colored man.
After another twenty minutes of walking, I saw a clearing in the forest up ahead. I got there to find the clearing was created by that plant from hell, kudzu. As much as I wanted to learn the truth, I decided this would be a good time to turn back.
When I swiveled about, I did not see any tracks. I saw no trail made by others, but even worse than that, I did not see any trail of my own. I gave up being quiet and careful, and I made a very obvious trail as I quickly walked the last part of my sojourn. A sense of horror filled me. It was as if nature herself worked against me. Perhaps these coloreds used some kind of voodoo magic to manipulate the forest into carrying out their bidding. What if they wanted me for a sacrifice for some pagan ritual?
I leapt back and involuntarily whimpered when the elderly Negro man appeared right before my eyes. One moment he was not there, and the next moment he was right in my path. He did not slop from behind a tree or brush; he appeared out of thin air.
I trained my high-powered rifle on him and yelled, “Don’t move old man.”
Despite my warning, he started to slowly walk toward me.
With my scope pinpointed on his chest, I yelled out again, “I mean it boy. I’ll blow a hole in your chest.”
He did not stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone else. It was the little black boy. He too slowly walked in my direction. I checked to my right and, sure enough, the middle aged Negro came toward me from that direction. I did not know what to do. I could not murder three unarmed people, especially not the child.
It soon became apparent they were not walking directly toward me. Rather, they appeared to be walking more toward one another. Being careful not to get too close to the vine infested area, I slowly stepped backward. The three really did not seem to be paying any attention to me. All three of them stared at the point where they would meet.
What happened next scared me more than ever before in my life. The three colored folks walked directly into one another, passing into each other like ghosts. This could not be possible, and I began to realize just how terrifying Baker’s Woods were. The three Negros merged and became something, something not human. It was difficult to explain or even believe. They stood inside one another, reminding me of those wooden Russian dolls. It was the most unholy thing, and now it walked directly at me. No wonder Scottie, William, and I ran out of here like maniacs all those years ago.
I fired two rounds, but the shots simply passed right through them. I fired two more shots and turned to run. The only place I had to go was in that kudzu filled clearing. I decided I would rather face snakes rather than the thing coming toward me.
The ropey vines caused me to trip several times. I could not run; I had to high-step my way through. At first, I thought it was a result of my panic, but I realized the stone objects were emitting a slight vibrating hum in my backpack. The closer I got to the center of the clearing, the louder the humming became. Eventually, it sounded like my pack was full of swarming bees.
The next thing I knew, the world instantly rose up around me. It became obvious I fell into a hole when I hit the hard floor below. Now, a radiance shone through my bag. I removed the two obelisks and the pyramid from the backpack to find all three of them glowing brightly. The relics produced enough illumination to light up the whole chamber.
I found myself sitting up in a large stone chamber. I glanced around the room and saw no other way out. The only apparent exit was through the opening above me. I tried to stand, but the pain in my right leg was unbearable; I broke it in the fall. Fear numbed the pain enough to keep me conscious, but there was no way I could stand. I did manage to pull my way out from under the hole above. I sat the items on the backpack and pulled that along with me.
I removed the remnants of my expensive rifle from my back and tossed it to the ground. The butt cracked and the barrel bent when I hit the floor. There was no fixing the gun at this point. Before tossing it away, I checked to see if the scope made it intact. One or more of the lenses shattered leaving the high-quality sight completely useless. At least I still had my revolver at my side.
Strange etchings covered the walls on either side of me. They did not resemble any American Indian symbolism that I knew, and I knew a lot on the subject. The beings depicted in the images appeared to be some form of two-legged, upright walking lizards. They did not look like alligators. They did not look like any reptile that lived around here. The creatures looked more like dinosaurs than anything else.
The scene seemed to depict some procession of the creatures. Above the creatures, carved among the clouds, were what I could swear were flying saucers. Along both sides of me, the lizard-men appeared to walk toward the back wall.
I tried to look behind me to see what was carved on the back wall. I involuntarily screamed. As I turned to look back, I twisted my broken leg. The excruciating pain was so intense, I thought I might black out. One thing and one thing only kept me conscious, and that was terror. I slid a good fifteen feet from the opening above, trying to reach the back wall. Following only seconds after my scream, the young black boy jumped down into the hole with me. He fell fast, but not as fast as he should. It almost appeared that he drifted rather than fell.
The boy slowly stepped toward me, and I moved away from him as quickly as I could. I did not know where I was going. Twenty more feet and my back would be against the wall. The boy was not three steps into the chamber when the younger man dropped in behind him. A moment later, the elderly Negro followed. I didn’t know what I was looking at. They were obviously not normal, but they looked every bit as human as me.
They drove me on backwards toward the wall behind me. None of the three moved any faster than I did. It felt like I shuffled my way back for eternity before my back hit a solid surface. I could go no further. I knew there was no escape. When I stopped, so did the boy. My body trembled with agony and fear. The younger man moved a few steps closer until he stood in the same space as the boy. The elderly man joined them until all three occupied the same place at the same time. Although they were not transparent, I could still see each one of them inside the other.
For the first time, I heard them speak. The three voices spoke in unison.
“Hey Bryan, where’s Scottie and White Willie?” the young boy asked.
At the same time the middle aged man said, “Why didn’t you guys ever come back for me?”
In a bitter and hateful tone, the elderly man said to me, “You sons of bitches. I guess it was okay to leave the black guy behind. You guys never did like hanging with a nigger did you?”
It was almost too much for my mind to take in. All three of the spoke different words, but I somehow knew they were all the same person. Black Willie, our old childhood friend, stood in front of me in three different stages of life. My brain found it difficult to process this paradox. Logic told me this could not be, yet there it was.
Black Willie, one of my best of friends, never came out of the forest with the rest of us. We left him here to this strange fate.
“I remember you now,” I said. “None of us could remember you. We tried, but we could not recall you ever having existed.”
All three Willies spoke again at the same time.
Just as hateful as ever, the elderly man said, “We agreed to put the keys in place together, but you honkeys chickened out.”
“I’m trapped here,” the middle aged Willie said. “This place is a doorway. When you guys didn’t put the other keys in place, it suspended me in this state. I have been trapped in this forest all these years.”
“Where did you guys go? I thought we were all spending the night at Scottie’s tonight,” the youngest Willie asked.
Every memory of our childhood chum returned to me. The four of us were best friends. We never did anything without the others. I remembered us playing in the woods and happening upon this chamber. The kudzu vines were not here then. We spent weeks trying to figure out how to get down there. Eventually we stole a long rope from one of the neighbors. Tying it firmly to a tree, the four of us climbed into the chamber. I remembered the four objects were the first things I saw, two pyramids and two obelisks.
The objects glowed like lamps; they glowed just like they did now. We examined the chamber, excited that we found something amazing. Black Willie said we would become famous because of this discovery. In the back wall – the wall upon which I rested – were four equally shaped holes as the artifacts.
The engraved murals on all of the walls showed an ancient race that used this room as a doorway to travel to another place. We argued and debated for a while, but eventually our curiosity won out. Each one of took an artifact and carried it to the back wall. We all agreed to count to three and then slide the keys into place. Scottie counted off for us but, when the time came, everyone hesutated but Black Willie. When he pushed the pyramid into place he became like a ghost. He was no longer solid. He was not there, but he was still there.
I remembered the room filling with a dozen or so ghostly images of the lizard beings. Scottie, William, and I dropped our keys and ran. We climbed up the rope as fast as we could. When we got back to ground level, we ran. We ran and did not stop until we reached Scottie’s house. We hid in his closet, but at that point none of us could remember why. It was as if our other friend was erased from existence.
Terrified, but not sure why, we hid in the closet for hours. Scottie’s mother eventually made us come out and sent White Willie and me home. By the next day, no memory of Black Willie or fleeing from the forest remained. We did not forget him; he no longer existed in normal time-space.
“What can I do?” I pleaded. “I’m so sorry. We didn’t come back because none of us remembered anything. I’m sorry my old friend, so-so sorry.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” the youngest Willie assured me. “You’re here now.”
“The other three keys must be put in place,” the Willie who was my age said in unison with his younger version. “If all four keys are put into place, the door will open and everything will go back to the way it was.”
Apparently, the three versions of Willie always spoke over one another. It strained my mind to comprehend what I experienced.
“You didn’t give a damn about me before. I’ve been trapped here for eighty years and now you suddenly care.”
I scooted my body around so I could see the back wall. The four holes were right above me, one of them plugged with a sunstone pyramid. I took the blue obelisk from the top of my backpack and reached up to slide it into place.
“No,” the youngest Willie yelled.
“All three keys must be put into place.”
“It’s about time you man up and do what you agreed to do sixty-eight years ago.”
Without hesitation, I slid the object into place. I felt the bonds holding together the atoms of my body break. In an instant my body became immaterial. I reached for another of the keys, but my hand passed through it like it was an illusion. Like Willie, I was no longer a part of the physical world.
I looked to Black Willie in hopes he could help me. My childhood friend was gone. Somehow, simply by conscious thought, I drifted upward out of the hole. I tried to run to my truck, but the farther away I made it from that chamber, the harder it was to hold onto my existence.
A few days later, Scottie received a phone call.
“Hey man, it’s me, Black Willie”
“Damn, I haven’t talked to you in ten years. What’ve you been doing all this time?”
“Listen, I have a strange question to ask you. When we were kids, do you remember ever having a friend named Bryan?”
“No, it was always you, me, and White Willie.”
No one remembered me. I was erased from normal time. Until Scottie and White Willie put their keys into place, I was doomed to this pit, this chamber covered in Kudzu.
Copyright © 2019
Feature Image Created Using Gab AI Image Generator
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