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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this and nothing more."
---
Crunch . Beneath Gerard’s weight, the ribcage of a late field mouse gave way and caused him to reel backwards on his heels, as if the vibration of the rodent’s bones snapping against the underside of his shoe had acted as an electric current and jolted his limbs. His center of balance seeming to have abandoned him, Gerard careened to the ground and his backside connected sharply with the soil, which had been freshly dampened by the recent bouts of thunderstorms parading New Jersey’s skies.
“Fuck,” he groaned miserably, furrowing his brow at the wildly overgrown greenery that had engulfed him during his fall. Before his unfortunate encounter with la souris morte , he had been trudging through the woods that perimetered Belleville. The locals referred to the forest as “Rickets,”- an unaffectionate nickname that Gerard had ceased to understand until he was in his late teens. He now realized that the old woods had been named after osteomalacia, the condition that causes children’s bones to soften and become weak. An osteomalacia victim is similar to the trees belonging to Rickets in that the trees there were notorious for rotting from the inside out before dying and falling prematurely, often doing so without much warning. The phenomenon is known as “heart rot,” a condition caused by fungi penetrating the bark and causing the “heartwood” to break down and become pulpy. It had been a source of minor frustration in those who wished to collect timber for their fireplaces and grew tired of chopping down trees only to find that their cores were a mushy mess. For the most part, it was a source of nonchalant chuckles and shrugs throughout town, at least for a little while. That is, until last summer when the Brennan family gathered in a scenic clearing in Rickets to hold a Memorial Day picnic. Until Camilia, their 7 year old daughter, grew tired of the festivities, flew under her parents’ radar, and wandered a few hundred yards into the trees. Until little Camilia brushed shoulders with Mr. Mortality and obstructed a tree’s route to the ground.
At least, that’s what they think must have happened.
The police said is certainly looked like that’s what happened.
Some people said the tree’s interior hadn’t been nearly as decayed as it would have had to be to fall without being stimulated. Some people said it was pushed. Some people said it was a particularly strong gust of wind. Most people didn’t say anything at all. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Not many people ventured too deep into Rickets’ depths anymore, and this was not solely due to the death of Camilia. It was for a plethora of reasons. Specifically the ravens.
Gerard repositioned himself into a crouch so that he could peer at the wasted rodent, wincing slightly as accumulated rainwater soaked the knees of his pants through and nipped his skin. The mouse’s fur stood on end in sparse, wet spikes, and emitted a vague perfume of bodily fluids gone sour, having been marinating in the grass for God knows how long. Its mouth was contorted and hung open at an impossibly disgusting angle, like a door fixed on broken hinges. The carcass was much flatter than it should have been, likely due to the wrath of Gerard’s lumbering foot that had come down upon it. The scent of death clung to the dampness of the air. The sky grumbled as if irritated.
He couldn’t believe that he’d actually stepped on the fucking thing. He felt terribly sorry and marginally ill.
(Crushed ‘im like that tree crushed little Camilia! I’ll be goddamned!)
Gerard rose to his feet and stepped over the mouse, careful not to breathe through his nose while he was positioned directly above it. He pressed his knuckles into his right temple.
( I’ll be goddamned!)
He resumed his route home, motivated partially by the urge to escape the corpse’s scent, but predominantly by the nicotine craving that had begun gnawing at and nagging him. Nothing can make you yearn for a cigarette quite like the sensation of a dead animal collapsing beneath your feet, hm? He walked. The clouds groaned again and then began to spit. Everything was okay for all of 15 minutes.
Gerard slipped between some tufts of wild grass, its wiry blades whistling as he passed, and emerged onto a path that had been almost entirely swallowed by flora. The only defining trait between the path and the ground around it was a slight indentation that had been formed by the treading of passers-by over the years. He was thinking of the mouse again. He wondered what had fasttracked its journey to demise. He wondered what it would look like in a couple of days when the maggots hatched beneath its skin. He wondered if it had felt any pain.
Raindrops drummed against his shoulders, gradually increasing in both frequency and volume, and Gerard’s annoyance was mounting. If he’d had any sort of premonition that he was going to be spitefully pelted with rain by the she-devil that was nature earlier, he wouldn’t have entered Rickets in the first place. He’d walked here as the result of an impulsive decision to skip class- this morning he’d shrugged into his uniform and trudged begrudgingly to the bus stop with his younger brother at his side, who’d chattered about whatever novel he was currently reading throughout the entire duration of the walk. Gerard couldn’t recall what novel it had been that Mikey was so enthusiastic about, for he had been preoccupied by his complete and utter discontent with the whole “school” thing and the fact that he was actually attending the horrific affair today. So naturally, he opted not to. He persuaded his brother not to tell their mother with $4 and a can of Diet Coke- not that she wouldn’t receive a call announcing her son’s absence later in the day.
Taking refuge from school in the forest was something he did on quite a regular basis. It was not somewhere that anybody would come looking for him, and that was exactly what Gerard wanted out of a hideout. Its girth provided sufficient milage for exploration and aside from the ominous creaking of trees and the abundance of mosquitos during the warmer months, it was quite a pleasant place.
Rain trickled down his cheeks and seeped between Gerard’s lips, tasting very slightly metallic. His uniform had taken on a darker shade of navy where the rain hit it directly. A chilling breeze made its debut. The October shower had evolved into something of an actual storm.
A glint of yellow winked from between tree trunks to his right, noticeable only due to the way it offset the earthy hue of all that surrounded it. His thoughts intercepted, Gerard halted abruptly and cocked his head at the object whose coloration was nonconsecutive. It was positioned some 40 yards away and was mostly obscured from view, making it impossible to identify and very intriguing. Without much deliberation at all, he abandoned the path leading home and strolled towards the yellow thing that had captured his attention. He used his forearms to shield his face and eyes from twigs and branches, which were outstretched like stiff little fingers and had a habit of snagging (and tearing) anything that they came into contact with. He wasn’t precisely in the mood to have his cornea kebabed.
As he approached the object, he at first falsely identified it as being an abandoned raincoat slung over the limb of a tree and he considered taking it for himself to prevent his sorry ass from becoming any more miserable and soaked than he already was. A small huff of gratitude passed his lips, as he had begun to get very cold, indeed. But as Gerard closed the final stretch between the yellow article and himself, he realized that it was not a raincoat at all.
It was a backpack.
Below it was a slew of transparent plastic wrappers, maybe twenty of them, crinkling and tumbling in the wind. One had been blown against and adhered to the tree nearest to Gerard, and he bent to examine it.
“ Moon Pie,” the wrapper declared proudly. “ The original marshmallow sandwich.”
Gerard wrinkled his nose humorously and snickered, memories of he and Mikey begging their mother to buy them each a Moon Pie (“or one to share!”) in the checkout aisle of the grocery store when they were in grade school flooding back to him. On occasion she would comply, but this was a rarity due to the tight budget that the Way family had been and still was on. He hadn’t seen a Moon Pie in years. In fact, he’d forgotten they existed, his memory of them having been stashed on some hard-to-reach shelf. His eyes flitted around the littering of plastic. It was apparent that they had been left here fairly recently and all at once, considering the layer of sticky marshmallow shit lining their interior and that the logo was still clear and pristine. He pondered why somebody, or even a group of people, would consider consuming this many of those sickly confections in their lifetime.
He then remembered the object that had lured him here in the first place, looking up at it suddenly. It hung at a height that was level with Gerard’s shoulders and was an ugly hue of mustard yellow. At its base was a large splotch of unsightly discoloration the the shade of rust, as if it had been sat down in a murky puddle. A cloying fog of uncertainty and what was perhaps foreboding lolled lazily around his skull. Gerard was sagacious enough to recognize that it would be in his best interest to dismiss the temptation proposed by the pack and head back to the path, but this did not change the fact that he was unbearably curious, driven by some boyish urge to expose its contents. Was it really so wrong to take a look? Even if the mag's owner did approach as he was pawing through their things, it wasn't his fault that they'd abandoned their bag.
( Finders keepers, hee hee.)
The backpack swung ever so slightly in the wind. The weight of whatever was inside caused the bottom to sag. It probably held no more than a change of clothes and perhaps the remainder of the owner’s Moon Pie horde, he hold himself. Abandoned or not, there was no need to go through their things.
Unsurprisingly, the zipper found its way between Gerard’s fingers.
The fetor hit his nose almost immediately. The backpack seemed to exhale as the zipper’s track parted, releasing a breath of stagnant, humid air into his face.
It’s funny how quickly the brain is capable of threat assessment and triggering instinctual reactions. Before Gerard’s conscious mind had been given a chance to register what he’d seen, his subconscious mind had sent his body sprawling backwards in retreat.
Inside had been a cluster of ziplock bags packed tightly together, the kind that he used to find containing a sandwich within his lunchbox. But this was not a backpack full of peanut butter and jellies. This was a backpack full of organs.
Gerard’s limbs had gelatinized and he struggled to remain standing. He cupped his hand tightly over his mouth and nostrils as a buffer against the smell, but the gagging ensued anyway. Every inch of his flesh crawled as if live wires had been implanted beneath it.
Organs. Entrails.
Though he had only caught a momentary glimpse at the contents of the ziplock bags, he was able to deduce that they had not been the innards of a small animal. At least, that’s what his cloudy brain was telling him. He did not wish to take a second look to confirm this. It was illegal to hunt deer or coyotes or any other large animal in this area, and although Gerard knew that wouldn’t necessarily prevent a determined sportsman from doing so, his gut (ha, ha) insisted that this was not the case. Be it fear or be it a lucky hunch, he was beyond petrified.
Suddenly acutely self-aware, he clumsily turned in a circle to survey the surrounding forest. He fully expected to find the owner of the bag looming behind him, having watched him uncover his --. Nobody was there. However, there was a bird.
“Ne-vermore,” it announced, somehow robotic in its pronunciation but human enough to make Gerard painfully uneasy. This would have sent him over the edge and frightened him straight out of his epidermal suit had it not been for his ninth grade biology teacher, who had once given his fourth period class an extensive lecture on this occurrence. Ravens, he’d said, are so miraculously intelligent that they are capable not only of learning and repeating human words, but of meticulously mimicking the voice of a person. Apparently they had also been known to vocalize the sound of car alarms after having heard them, as well as the calls of other birds and the sound of toilets flushing. It was no coincidence that the word “nevermore” was this bird of choice because it is the first word that comes to mind when people think of the species, and so was a word that had likely been repeated to it time and time again. Naturally, it began to copy. This knowledge did not soothe Gerard’s nerves, though- the last thing he needed right now was for some fucking bird to draw attention to him.
“NEVERMORE,” the raven cawed in an entirely different voice than it had exercised before. It cocked its head mechanically in a way that was and comically mischievous.
“ Shut up ,” Gerard hissed, tossing a glance over his shoulder at the backpack. Its partially unzipped closure resembled a grin. The pattering of rain against the bags inside seemed impossibly loud.
“Shut-up,” clicked the raven in an alarmingly Gerard-esque tone, its eyes glinting knowingly.
That was it. Gerard bolted through the dripping foliage as quickly as his legs would allow, not slowing once he reached the path. His Converse lacked traction and skidded in the mud, once sending him careening to the ground and soiling his uniform beyond the restorative capabilities of any detergent, but he did not stop running. The keen sense of dread within him would not allow it. The rain was blinding. Trees passed blurrily in his peripheral vision, becoming less dense as he neared the outskirts of Rickets and his home grew near. He was desperately irked and his heart thudded painfully and persistently for more reasons than one. It seemed to have taken a millennium at the very least, but after five minutes or so, he burst through the final wall of vegetation and into the belt of grass that separated the woods from the backyards of his neighborhood. He modified his pace to suit societal standards and his lungs thanked him profusely as he made his way towards his house, passing the splintered fences of his neighbors. Not that the amount of mud that caked his clothes was socially acceptable by any means. He trudged through the tangled weeds, The ominousity of the looming forest was almost tangible- it radiated a sickly wave of gloom.
Gerard had two hunches. He could not disprove either of them regardless of how many times he turned them over in his mind.
One: Those had not been animal organs. This, he knew, would come across as being worryingly irrational to anybody he could potentially tell. The bag that sat atop the others- the first one that had come into view and the only ome that he'd gotten a decent look at- had contained what were quite obviously intestines. Their girth had been hearty and their large diameter would have been enough to convince any old fool that they had definitely not belonged to a small animal. But that was not what had convinced Gerard that he'd happened upon human organs, no. As he'd released his grip on the backpack, gravity tugged the bag of intestines slightly downward, revealing the real kicker. A brain. A human brain; he swore by it. Deer brains, he knew, take on the shape of the skull they inhabit and therefore have a curve and elongation to them. The brain in the backpack had been rounded and of the perfect size to call a human skull its humble abode. His eyes had rested upon the greyish mass for a mere fraction of a second before he adverted them, but at that second… he knew.
The trees thrashed in the wind, their sopping leaves whipping one another angrily.
Gerard's second hunch was based not upon physical evidence, but purely upon paranoia: the owner of the backpack was going to find their backpack hanging open and collecting rainwater, and they were going to be angry. Livid, even. They were gping to want to find who disturbed their little ecosystem. Maybe they would want the perpetrator’s scalp hanging over the mantle in their living room.
By now he had reached the gate that bordered his own backyard. He fiddled with the rusted latch until it gave then stumbled across the lawn to the shelter of the back porch’s overhang, not bothering to close the gate behind him. Eager to escape the woods behind him and not at all enjoying having his back turned to them, he hurriedly retrieved his key from his front pocket and let himself inside with trembling hands.
The back door of the home opened into the kitchen, where Gerard’s mother had been spooning muffin batter into baking tins until her tarnished son stumbled inside, puddles already beginning to form at his feet. The spoon she’d been using fell from her fingers and sank into the bowl of batter with a slurp. After she'd given herself a moment to assess the damage Gerard’s muddy shoes were doing to the linoleum, she spoke; her words so eloquently put and sweetly spoken that they would have been the envy of any poet:
“What the fuck?”
---
After a healthy dose of lecturing came an equal amount of crooning, cooing, and forehead kisses. Gerard’s mother had received a phone call from Belleville High’s attendance office earlier that afternoon, informing her that Gerard had not been present during homeroom. As she peeled the sopping blazer from her son’s shoulders, she inquired where he’d been instead of school, to which Gerard impulsively uttered,
“Library.”
“Mmm,” she slung Gerard's blazer over the back of a dining room chair and pursed her lips around a cigarette as she brought a lighter's flame to it. “Mikey left for the library a few hours ago.” She inhaled. “You see him there?”
Gerard felt his jaw tighten. Impulsively, he shook his head in denial and leaned over the bowl of muffin batter to inspect it with false nonchalance, hoping the dread that gnawed at his stomach was suitably masked.
Ho, ho! Little Mikey, all 20 pounds of him, alone out in the rain with an innard enthusiast!
“ I must’ve missed him.” He rubbed a clammy palm against the kitchen counter. It squeaked.
Donna Way's eyes gleamed with humored suspicion and she shouldered him out of the way to resume her baking. A wave of inexplicable revulsion exploded beneath Gerard's skin as their arms brushed.
Ha ha ha ha.
Taking a seat atop the counter, he watched as she tore into a bag of frozen blueberries, wincing at the way the plastic parted like a morbidly elastic layer of skin. He pictured himself with blueberry bags instead of flesh. That was pretty funny.
“Ma,” he said suddenly.
“What, baby?” Her cigarette bobbed as she spoke, dusting the front of her shirt with ash. The muffin mixture took on a melancholic shade of lilac as she stirred the berries in.
“You look pretty.”
She beamed at him through the wall of smoke between them. He thought of the bacpack. He wondered who was packed inside, and what they'd looked like when they smiled like that. Gerard did his best not to grimace.
---
The basement stairs groaned beneath Gerard's weight as he descended down them into his room. In one hand he held a muffin, which still retained some of the oven’s warmth and felt cozy in his palm. In the other hand was a small army of pills. They did not feel half as cozy.
He set the items down on his bare mattress (the fitted sheet that should have been stretched over the top sat crumpled in the corner, having come off one night months ago and never been put back into position) then changed into his pajamas, fetched a pack of Marlboros from his sock drawer, and lit one. It tasted stale. Returning to his bed, he swept up the handful of medication and flipped onto his stomach, his upper half hanging off the side of the bed that faced the wall. In the small gap between the wall and the bedframe was a plastic jack-o-lantern; the kind kids use to collect candy on Halloween night. He deposited the pills into the pumpkin. They clicked satisfyingly against the inches of tablets that had already accumulated there.
He sat up and pulled a drag from his cigarette. What he'd seen out in Rickets today… had it been real?
He was reminded of what an old psychiatrist of his had once told him and a cold chill worked it's way up the back of his neck. “ Your brain will naturally draw from what it knows- you'd be surprised to learn how unimaginative the human brain truly is.”
Was he forgetting something? If the day’s events had actually been a concoction of past events and sensations, what could it be credited to? Horror movies? Or was that shrink just a sack of shit?
“ Nevermore,” he whispered, feeling positively ill.
He ate his muffin and listened to the floorboards above his room creak as his brother came home unharmed after all. At some point he lapsed into a fitful sleep, only to awake a few hours later to vomit, his stomach insistent on emptying itself and his nostrils reluctant to rid themselves of the jarring twinge of gore.