The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

If there’s a sun left in the sky, you can’t see it from the makeshift campsite, a small flat spot Father found just off the one of the dead-ended offshoots of Hot Springs Road. He says that according to the map — his version of it — there’s a lake nearby, but it’s hidden from view — wherever it is Father has parked the camper, you get no sense of water or sloping hills, of the space a lake carves for itself out of hilly land. The earth is hard and flat, and piles of stripped logs lie in jumbled heaps at the edges, as thought matchsticks tossed by a giant. The woods here seems weak and tired, as if it never quite recovered from whatever culling happened decades ago. You sit on a collapsible camp stool, watching Father set up a small table for the Coleman stove and lanterns. No fire tonight, this time. Father says there isn’t time, they have to be to bed early and up early. “It’s ready,” he says to your mother, as he lights the small stove. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He turns and walks off with the lighter, disappearing between tree trunks and the sickly tangle of ferns. His job is finished, and he’s off to smoke a cigarette or two, an ill-kept secret no one in the family is supposed to notice. There are so many other secrets to keep track of, he can afford to let slip one. Besides, it calms him down. You note that the map is in his back pocket, sticking out like a small paper flag.

Your mother has become thin-lipped and subdued over the past hour — you know what she’s thinking, even if she doesn’t. No matter where the family goes, a vacation for all of you is never a vacation for her, only the usual cooking and serving and cleaning without any of the comforts of home. Jamie knows how she feels, and as usual, he helps her. Beef stew and canned green beans tonight, and store-bought rolls with margarine. Chocolate pudding cups for dessert. If she was in the mood, she’d make drop biscuits from the box, or cornbread. She’s not in the mood tonight. It’s more than just cooking, this time. Father and your mother are divided over the vacation, over the destination. This is a first for them, and a first for you. Usually they are united in all things, as you and Jamie are, because so much is always at stake for all of you, because everything must be done in secret, away from the eyes of those who wouldn’t understand, which is everyone in the world. But things are off-balance, tonight. You stare up at the trees, trying to see past them to the heart of the mountains. Your mother couldn’t see the brown ink lines, the map within the map. Does he? You think you know the answer. Otherwise, why would he ignore his own vacation plans, his own map and dotted blue lines, why would he take you all here?

“June.” Your mother, her voice clipped and tired. “Go get your father. Dinner’s ready.”

You stand up, looking around. Nothing but trees. It’s peaceful here without him, brooding over everyone. You don’t see the need to change that.

“I don’t know where he went…”

“June, please. It’s been a long day. Just go get him.”

“I don’t even know where he went to!”

“Just follow the smoke,” Jamie says.

“Hush!” Your mother slaps at his arm, a playful smile on her face. For a moment, her dour mood has lifted. You use it, slipping into the woods unnoticed. You’ll follow the smoke only as far as you need to, before going in the opposite direction. He can come back on his own.

Five feet in, and the darkness seals up the space behind you, as though the cozy camper and the soft lights never existed at all. Up above, the sky is still blue, but starless and without light. There are no paths or trails here, only ground thick with fallen pine needles and cones, and large ferns that brush at your face as you push through them. No trace of smoke is in the air, you smell only wet earth and pitch and leaves. You should have grabbed a flashlight, but you’ve never been afraid of the dark before, so you push forward. After several thick strands of webbing lash your face, you raise your arm, holding the book up high before you like a shield. It’s a crumbling cloth-bound volume Father gave you years ago, for your seventh birthday. Mythology of Yore. Mythology of your what? you’d joked when you unwrapped the book. Father stopped smiling: later, when you started reading, you stopped smiling as well. The stories are old, very old, and deliciously cruel, and when you touch the illustrations, red and silver bleeds off onto your skin. “This will explain everything,” Father had said when he gave it to you. “This will explain why we do what we do, and why it is not wrong. Why it is as old as mankind itself, beautiful, divine.”

He must not have read all the stories in the book.