Waiting for Harvey (The Spirits of Maine) (12 page)

*

For a few days, I stayed in the cabin while another winter storm delivered more than two feet of fresh powdery snow.  The view from the front window was beautiful and serene.  Animal tracks soon marred the surface of the snow across the clearing.  I enjoyed watching the elegant gait of the deer as it wandered by.  A massive bull moose marched along the game trail, following two young females.  

When the biting wind ended and the temps climbed above zero again, I went out for a short walk.  The latest rip in my coat was patched with more duct tape.  It was dirty and stained, but it kept me warm.  I stayed on the path and didn’t wander far from the cabin.  The shotgun hung over my shoulder at an angle that made it easy to rotate and aim.  It felt good to breathe the fresh air, but my heart ached to go far beyond the clearing.

Inside the cabin again, I cleaned the gun, washed my dirty clothes, prepared food, and did some housekeeping.  I read and tried to write some.  After the last attempt to flee on the ATV, I felt sure that I was followed wherever I went.  Out at the wood pile, down in the root cellar, or in the shower, I was never alone anymore.

I remained confident that I could get away from him if I could get some distance from the cabin.  He couldn’t possibly follow me out of the woods.  I was determined to find a way.  He would not shake my resolve.  On the first day with temps warm enough to cause melting, I would tell him I was going out hunting for food.  When I made it out to the road, I would just keep walking.  I wouldn’t be mesmerized by his tricks again.

After two weeks of biding my time, I woke to the sound of water dripping from the edge of the roof in the morning.  I had slept-in until nearly 9:00 o’clock.  Since becoming a captive, I found myself sleeping far more than I needed to.  That morning the winter sun warmed the snow and ice and the runoff pattered down on the snow mounds in front of the porch.

Thinking about my plan, I smiled.  Quickly, I recalled my last escape plan and how I whistled and smiled through the morning.  I turned my thoughts to John and the dreadful reasons he might have for not coming for me.  My smile faded and I walked down the stairs. 

I ate the last of my latest kill.  It was a grouse that was not weathering the winter well.  There was no fat on his bones.  I likely saved him from starving to death later in the season.  Sadly, I thought of John again before I lifted the trap door and climbed down into the root cellar.  I looked over the diminishing collection of cans, jars, and other containers.  My supplies were running dangerously low.

Shaking my head, I stepped up onto the kitchen floor again.  I let the trap door bang shut.  Resolutely, I carried in more wood and built up a raging fire in the wood stove.  It would burn through the day and help to maintain the illusion that I meant to return.  I believed that the ruse had helped in the past.

“If I don’t get some food in reserve before the weather changes again, I’m going to starve,” I announced to the ceiling.

There was no response.  I took out the box of birdshot and shook it gently.  I exhaled loudly.  More had been used than I realized.  There was only enough ammo left for a few more hunting excursions.  I didn’t know the date with any degree of certainty, but I guessed it was no later than the end of January.  There were likely a few more months of winter weather to come in northern Maine.

“I need to find a fat Tom turkey and get him with the first shot,” I muttered.  “Will have to make this hunting trip a good one.”

I received no reply.  I ran up the stairs and tugged an extra pair of socks on before pushing my feet into the boots.  The shadow passed by the window in the loft.  I hadn’t expected it and I shivered.  Trying to ignore it, I worked to snug my boots tight.   

“Don’t go,” he whispered close behind me.  The shadow twisted and rolled before it whirled around my feet.

“I’m only going out hunting,” I protested, feeling like a child who had been caught lying to his mother.

“No,” he moaned, eerily.

“I need more food.”

“Hunt in the clearing,” he proposed as he rose up the wall and down again.

“I need to go out and find a big, fat Tom,” I reasoned, fighting to remain calm as the shadow moved close to my face.

“…from the clearing.”

“You don’t understand hunting,” I admonished, relieved that it moved back down to the floor.

“I do.  I hunted these woods.”

I hadn’t anticipated that response, and it shook me from my thoughts.  “Please, trust me,” was all that I could manage.

“No.”

“Small game birds are not enough to keep me alive,” I reasoned.  “There is little food in the root cellar now.”

“Only in the clearing,” he insisted.  The shadow darkened and moved up at my left.  Briefly it shrouded the window and the loft grew colder.

“Harvey…” the name hung heavy in the air.  Speaking his name made him feel more corporeal.  He wasn’t just a nameless entity.  I felt ashamed of my attempts to deceive him, but I needed to leave.  I couldn’t stay just to save him from being alone and lonely.  “I need food and have little ammunition left.  I need to make the best use of what I have left.”

“…from the clearing,” he repeated, forcefully.

“No, not from the clearing!” I retorted.  I would not surrender to his bullying.  I needed to make him understand.  He had to let me go.  I would die if I stayed and he seemed not to care.  My anxiety was building quickly and my fury increased with it.  “Trust me to follow the trail!”

“No,” he replied sharply as if he was scolding me.

“You can’t keep me here forever!” I thundered.  My anger and frustration had been building and I was seeking an outlet for it.  When I snapped, all reason was gone.  “You can’t hold the actions of a child against me, Harvey!  We were just boys, and you shouldn’t have responded even if we did call to you!  How stupid are you?  If you can’t leave here, that’s not my problem!  I’ll hunt where I choose and return when I’m please!  Leave me alone, damn you!”

The shadow became a black veil that unfurled through the loft.  My chest tightened, and I inhaled sharply.  I felt the change in the air.  Something wicked pulsed in the room.  My head filled with statements I needed to make and observations I had been seething over but my lips did not part to speak again.  Vile words lay on my tongue, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

A hand pressed against my shoulder, solid and icy.  I spun to look at it.  My mouth flew open and a weak gasp escaped.  The horrifying face was only inches from mine.  Decaying tissue hung from the ruddy, brown skull.  The eye sockets were empty and the jaw moved rapidly, as if the thing was laughing hysterically.  The shrill scream was deafening and I clapped my hands over my ears, stumbling back away from it. 

I took another clumsy step backward and realized too late that I was at the top of the stairs.  With no railing on the outside of the steps, I stretched my arms out and fought to catch my balance.  The thing reached toward me and I felt a flash of relief.  It meant to save me!  Then the boney fingers touched my chest and pushed me away.

There would be no painful tumble down the stairs.  The thing shoved me toward the open side of the stairs.  I fell backwards with my arms pin-wheeling in the air, until I struck the floor below.  My body bounced up an inch or two and thumped against the hard wood again.  I looked up to the loft above me and my world went dark.

I can only guess at how long I lay there on the floor before I regained consciousness again.  The room was still and I wondered if I had died already.  My body remained still as my eyes roamed toward the window and up to the loft again.  The shadow had gone.  I had climbed the stairs late in the morning to get an extra pair of socks.  Since then, the sun had shifted from the east to the west and I knew that my fall had happened hours earlier.

My body ached from head to toe, and I wondered what might be damaged or broken.  I lifted my arms… I tried to lift them… but only my right arm came up as my brain directed it to.  My right fingers touched my hair and found no blood there.  There was none on my neck or near my ears either.  My face seemed to be intact, but blood from a nose bleed had smeared under my nose and across my cheek where it dried.

I attempted to pull myself up into a sitting position.  The effort only increased the sharp pain in my head and my back.  Minutes passed, and I accepted that I would have to endure the agony if I was ever going to get up from the floor.  With no feeling in my left arm, I chose to roll to my right side first.  Gripping the leg of a chair, I rocked over onto my right side.  After a few failed attempts, I was able to sit up.

Leaning back against the chair, I looked down at my legs.  They looked okay, but there was pain in my left leg.  It wasn’t severe, and I wasn’t overly concerned.  My left arm worried me greatly.  It hung limply at my side.  I gripped it with my right hand and felt my way up to the elbow.  The bone felt like it was misaligned.  I didn’t know if it was broken or just disjointed.  Above the elbow something was just wrong.  The pieces didn’t fit right.  There was no pain in the left, and that worried me most.  From the fingertips up to the shoulder, it wasn’t numb or tingly; it was dead, for lack of a better description.

I told the fingers to flex, but they ignored me.  The wrist refused to bend.  The elbow would not move without assistance from my right hand.  My knowledge of modern medicine is extremely limited, but I knew my lifeless arm was critical.  I needed a doctor or a team of doctors.  I needed a rescue unit and a trip to the Emergency Room.  There was no help coming.

My sluggish brain struggled to recall the moments before I fell.  The sight of the thing so close to my face raised goose bumps on my arms.  I remembered the dark shadow that thinned and blanketed the loft.  Worst was the memory of the icy fingers that pushed me backward.  I hated the idea of being alone in the cabin without needed assistance, but I was grateful that it had gone.  Sitting on the floor, feeling extremely vulnerable, I thought of John’s shotgun up in the loft.

Slowly, I used the chair to rise up onto my right knee.  I recognized the ache in my side and knew there was at least one newly broken rib.  I tried to stand.  A jolt of pain shot up my left leg and stabbed at the back of my brain.  I sat on the chair with my legs stretched out and looked to the window.  While I had been thinking and trying to get up from the floor, the sunlight had shifted again.  I guessed that another hour had passed.  The afternoon was moving along and night was coming.

A persistent thump, thump, thump, beat against the inside my skull.  Waves of nausea unsettled my stomach.  I inched toward the edge of the chair with every intention of standing up.  The room had cooled and I meant to stoke the fire.  A thousand alarm bells rang throughout my body, and I squeezed my eyes shut.  I slid back on the seat and rested.

When I woke again, the light had bled away from the room.  Outside, the moon and stars hid behind a thick bank of clouds.  They left the world in total darkness.  Inside the cabin, the last of the glowing coals had dropped through the grate into the ashes below.  I was alone without even a shadow to be seen.

Trees creaked in the wind, gently reminding me that the night was growing colder.  I eased forward and leaned to the right.  I clenched my jaw and gripped the arm of the chair with my right hand.  Bit by bit, I maneuvered to stand beside the chair.  I grabbed one of the snowshoeing poles, left leaning against the wall and pushed the tip against the floor. 

Using the pole and disregarding the damage I was doing to the wood floor, I moved toward the wood stove.  It was not a simple venture.  I nearly fell twice and that left me feeling tense and anxious.  Carefully, I kindled the fire and fed it the driest logs from the wood box.  Slowly, so very slowly, I pivoted and crossed the short distance to the couch.  My head and body wanted to retreat into sleep.

My dry mouth and full bladder forced a detour into the bathroom.  I grabbed at the stairs, furniture, and door frame along the way.  Anything solid that might provide some support was appreciated.  I swallowed several Tylenol tablets and shook the bottle.  I worried that there weren’t enough pills left to fulfill my upcoming needs.  I drank a tall glass of water and ambled back toward the sitting area. 

Seated on the couch again, I felt my stomach lurch.  I begged and pleaded with it to be calm.  The thought of vomiting at that point filled me with dread.  Fear gripped me and my muscles tensed further.  The pain increased and my stomach lurched again.  I eased back on the couch and closed my eyes.  The discomfort in my left leg was increasing and it began to throb as it swelled.  Gingerly, I lifted it up onto the couch and swung the right one up beside it.

When I woke again, sunlight spilled in through the windows and washed away the last of the shadows.  I lifted my head and covered my eyes with my right hand.  My headache had progressed from a deep thumping sensation to a flat bang, bang, bang at the back of my head.  I sat for some time, contemplating simply wetting my pants rather than forcing myself to stand again. 

With the help of the snowshoeing poles, I moved first to the woodstove to toss two logs in.  Cautiously, I progressed toward the bathroom.  Clutching the edge of the sink, I shrugged off my pants.  My left leg was severely swollen from the knee to the foot.  It had doubled in size and was mottled with splashes of deep purple and red. 

From what I had learned from books and TV, I believed that the ends of a broken bone would need to be reconnected before the healing could begin.  I understood that it would be an excruciatingly painful thing, and strong painkillers would be needed.  It was certainly not something a man alone in a cabin without strong pain meds or alcohol would be likely to accomplish.  I wondered what the outcome might be if it wasn’t managed properly.