The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

He lets go.

You fall, choking on your spit and pain, into the roots of the tree, your shorts and panties bunched at your feet. Father walks away, thin branches snapping under his feet as he zips up his pants. Then the metal rasp of his lighter, followed by the solitary blue-orange flame singing the tobacco into red. “Tomorrow night, when we get there, I’ll be with you. All the way to the end.” A moment of silence as he takes a deep drag, and exhales. You stay huddled in the knotted arms of the tree, hand at your throat, afraid to breath.

“Dinner’s waiting, June-Bug. Hurry up.” He walks away, crashing and cursing as he tries to find his way. It would be funny, if — When you no longer hear the sound of his footsteps, you crawl to your feet, clinging to the bark of the tree for support, then pull your shorts back on with trembling hands. The map is stuck to the bottom of your right sandal. You wipe the blood and dirt off with great care, then fold it small enough to tuck into your panties, small enough to not be noticed by anyone. He’s done for the night, and you’re not touching Jamie again tonight, not with your mother’s smell all over him.

Off to your left, that’s where the campsite was supposed to be, except, you don’t know what left is anymore, or where it used to be. You walk forward, toes curled and back hunched as if worried that a single noise will bring him flying out of the darkness at you again. Your sandals slide over blacktop, flat and smooth. Overhead, the stars, and a sudden feeling of space and distance: the road. It’s the same road Father drove down two hours ago, before he turned off onto the dirt road into the woods. You turn, looking back into the woods. All of the trees look the same, you can’t tell which one Father pressed you against. All you know is that when he first did, you and he were not at the side of the road, there was no road at all. You closed your eyes and you traveled. You escaped, but you took him with you, and only this far.

Is this what he was waiting for?

How much farther can you go?

Dinner is a dream. Your mother pinches your nose and wipes the blood away without a word, then gives you cold water with miniature ice cubes from the tiny freezer, saying nothing as she hands you the glass. She must know what father did. Maybe she made him do it. Father has two beers, and your mother doesn’t hesitate in bringing them to him. He’s mad at her, which is when he drinks. She’s subservient when she’s mad, which makes him angrier, because he knows she’s just pretending. Jamie’s eyes look a bit puffy, not enough for anyone except you to notice. Your mother did or said something to him, that he didn’t like. He touches his bangs constantly, keeps his head down. You eat your beef stew in small bites, careful to grind it down to a paste your tender throat can swallow. It all tastes the same. And as you force down your meal, you realize that all the things you know about your world, the normal things, aren’t the right things. They aren’t the things that are going to save you. You think of the book, lonely and cold, heroes and gods already festering in the damp of the undergrowth.

But the map… The map is folded into a tiny square, shoved deep into your underwear. It’s your map now, it’s not his or hers, he threw it away, and besides, it was never his map anyway. It was never his journey, his destination. He had his own, and besides — isn’t what he gets from you enough? Does he have to go everywhere, see everything? Is there no place left for you and you alone? You bite down on the lip of the plastic tumbler. There’s nothing you can do, really. It’s not your fight, what they fight about. You, like any good map, can only point any number of ways. But if he wants to see everything, he’s going to be surprised. Everything is not where you’re headed. Everything is never where you go.

After dinner, it’s quick to washing up and then to bed. You and Jamie each get five minutes alone in the camper to change before clambering up into the camper’s upper bed. Father and your mother argue quietly in the front of the camper, behind a small plaid curtain your mother sewed. I can’t believe you lost the map, she says. We don’t need a map, I know where we are, and I’ll know when we get there, he says. That doesn’t even make sense, she says. We agreed to go to Windy Arm, we agreed to go where I wanted to go for once, she says. Wherever we go, we go together, he says. We do it for the family. That’s how Mom and Dad taught us, it’s how we survive. We do it as one.