Fire in the Woods
by Nikki Smith
Bill Shutter forced himself to look in the mirror every morning. He’d see his raisin-like face and bald head and wonder what it was like to die. He would stand there until his knees started to buckle from being on his feet for too long—the same legs that used to carry him through the woods for miles now failed him, making him rely on a wheelchair for most of his mobility.
After his mirror standoff, he would move on to getting dressed. It took him a few minutes to put on his flannel shirt and denim jeans. He blamed it on his fingers being too big for the buttons. He never asked his nurse for help—he had to do what he could to keep his dignity. He’d then force down his first few pills of the day with a chug of water and sit in his wheelchair. Once he left his apartment, he would go left or right from his door and head down the sterile-smelling hall. His choice would take him either to the living area—which always smelled faintly of other residents’ incontinence—or the cafeteria. Most days he went to the cafeteria, then he’d try to sneak back into his apartment without his nurse seeing. Every time she found out he had spent the whole day in his apartment, he’d receive a lecture akin to a child on their first day at kindergarten.
“You can always go visit your friend Larry. You remember him, right Mr. Shutter?” she’d say. “You played cards with him last week. He lives right across the hall.”
“I’ll talk to him,” he’d say, but he never did. He wasn’t going to fall for her lies—he didn’t know anyone named Larry. He’d always been good with names.
One time, as he was wheeling himself down the hallway, he saw his wife, Sandra. She was standing in front of a walker and looking at a painting on the wall.
“Sandra?” he said.
Sandra turned around, her mouth agape. She looked back at him. Bill immediately realized she was not his Sandra. There was no life in the woman’s eyes—it was almost as if she had television static for a brain. That’s what Bill thought about most people living here: their lives had no color.
Sandra would have been so wonderful with their grandchildren. He and Sandra’s daughter, Amy, would bring all three of them nearly every Saturday to come visit. He’d take her and the kids down to the cafeteria to get some fudge pops. He’d always end up having to apologize to Amy for all the chocolate that would inevitably drip onto the kids’ shirts. They were still young enough that they didn’t truly care what he had to say, but at least they would listen to him.
Amy had once visited his apartment with her oldest child, Ellie, who quickly found the photo of him and Sandra that he’d kept on his nightstand. He let her look at it for all of two minutes.
“Sandra, put that back now,” he said.
“My name is Ellie.” She put it back on the table. “I’m not Grandma.”
“Oh, you know what I meant. I keep forgetting to take that damn memory pill.”
“I doubt those pills even do anything for you, Dad,” Amy said.
“Well, that’s good. I already take enough pills anyway.”
Amy shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
Most nights, especially after his family visited, he would have the same dream. In fact, he couldn’t remember a night where he’d dreamed something different within the past five years. He’d fall asleep and—in his dream—wake up lying on his back in a field of white orchids. The sun would shine down on him, warming his skin. The orchid field was on the top of a mountain, and in the distance he could see many more rolling hills of white. The flowers smelled sweet, just like Sandra’s perfume. Then he would wake up, her smell still in his nose, and stay in bed to lie by himself in his lonely, sterile room. He’d look at the empty side of his bed and remember she was gone, and how much he wished he could go back.
#
His memory of that day was as clear as a freshwater stream. He’d set his alarm for four o’clock to give himself enough time to check his knapsack and put on all his gear.
He sat up and climbed out of bed, lured by the scent and sound of bacon frying in a pan. He walked through the doorframe of their bedroom—they had no doors in the house aside from the entryway and bathroom—and into the kitchen. Sandra was standing in front of the woodstove, adjusting the firewood with an iron poker.
“Mornin’, Sandra,” he said.
Sandra jumped and whipped around, dropping the iron poker on the floor with a clang. Ash scattered across the tiles.
“My lord!” Sandra shouted. “You walk so quietly, Bill.”
Bill grinned. “Hunter's feet.”
“Right.” Sandra grabbed a broom from the cabinet next to the woodstove and began to sweep the ashes into a pile. “Do you want an egg with your breakfast?”
“No,” Bill said. “Need help cleaning that up?”
“I’m fine,” Sandra said. She had already started brushing the ash pile neatly into a dustpan. “Remember what Doctor Oswald said. Eggs have a lot of good vitamins. And you could use some extra energy today.”
“Fine, I’ll have just one, please. You want me to make ‘em?”
Sandra shook her head vehemently. “No. I don’t need you burning the cabin down in the middle of winter.”
Bill chuckled. “Fine, dear.”
After she finished cooking the eggs, Sandra put them on two plates along with some bacon and two slices of toast. They sat together at the little square table across from the woodstove. Bill had built the table himself—in fact, he had built the entire cabin. It was their retirement project, and they’d moved in as soon as he’d completed it fifteen years ago.
Bill ate the last of his breakfast and got up to get dressed. Sandra remained at the table, working on a crossword puzzle as she sipped a cup of coffee. Bill walked through the doorway and into their bedroom, where he kneeled down onto the hardwood floor and pulled out the bottom drawer of their dresser. There lay his camouflage jacket, pants, gloves, and a few pairs of thick wool socks. Underneath the jacket, Bill found his neon-orange hat and its matching vest. He grabbed only the hat from the set, pulled out the other clothes, and closed the drawer.
He emerged from the bedroom fully dressed in his camouflage gear, looking like a two-dimensional leafy tree. Sandra looked up from her crossword puzzle and after scanning him up and down, slowly shook her head.
Bill slouched. “What?”
“Where is your orange vest?”
“Don’t need it.” Bill pointed to his head. “I’ve already got the hat.”
“I will not have you shot on the first day of the hunting season,” Sandra said. “Or any day, for that matter. You better put that vest on, or I won’t let you out that door.”
Bill groaned and turned back around. He grabbed the vest from the bottom dresser drawer, straining his knees as he forcefully pushed himself up again. He glanced at the clock hanging above the front door from where he stood in the bedroom. The second hand continued to tick by. The longer he stared at the clock, the farther it went. The sound of it clicked in his ears: tick, tick, tick. Finally, he calculated that it was a quarter-to-five: the usual time that he liked to leave.
Bill walked once again through the doorway and past Sandra. She looked up and smiled approvingly.
“Very good, Bill.”
“I just try to keep you happy,” he said. He stood by the entryway and pulled on his boots.
“And you do,” she replied. “Good luck out there, dear.”
Bill nodded his thanks and grabbed his shotgun off the wall before walking out the door and onto their screened-in porch. He’d laid his knapsack out there last night after packing it with all his supplies, including a flashlight, a small foam cushion, his ammo, and a bottle of water. The shotgun was already fully loaded: he had to always be prepared in case there was a bear or some other kind of danger. As he reached for the straps of his knapsack, his jacket scraped against the material of his vest. He couldn’t stand that sound. Glancing at the window, he could see Sandra at the table, fully invested in her crossword puzzle. He quickly unbuckled his vest and laid it on the bench before slinging the knapsack over his shoulders.
Bill let the screen door close silently behind him and walked around to the back of the cabin. He trudged through several layers of leaves in his boots. He’d seen no need to buy a leaf blower despite Sandra’s nagging. They lived in the woods for goodness’ sake—he would have to be out there all day, every day to maintain their property’s leaves. They’d eventually settled that he would rake the dirt driveway that led to their house once a month from September to December.
He walked straight into the forest from the back of the house. It only took him about twenty minutes to get to his spot: a large boulder covered in the shade of the oak trees. The surrounding terrain was mostly flat with a few small hills.
Bill sat down on his cushion. The trees shook with the wind, and he kept hearing sharp thuds from their acorns falling onto the forest floor. Bill’s face felt like a snowball, and he was thankful that it was the only part of him exposed to the bitter cold.
As the sky turned pink with the slow rise of dawn, he began to very faintly hear birds chirping from the nearby brush. The rustle of the trees as they shook with the wind covered most of the sound. Bill continued to keep watch over his surroundings through a pair of binoculars. He may not have had the best hearing (or vision) anymore, but he wasn’t going to let a deer get by him.
Bill spotted a stocky whitetail, an eight-point buck, a few yards away from him. His heart began to pound. This is it, he thought to himself. Sandra will be ecstatic.
He put down his binoculars and grabbed his shotgun. He watched the buck—it was close enough that he could see it without his binoculars—as it stepped closer and closer to his spot. Bill raised his gun, as silent as a field mouse foraging near a cat. He placed his pointer finger on the trigger and was just about ready to shoot when the buck suddenly shot his head up, looked right at him, and bolted off in the opposite direction.
“Dammit,” Bill muttered.
Suddenly, he heard leaves rustling nearby. He lowered his gun and listened, remaining as still as possible. It was hard to hear anything with the trees shaking from the wind, but it sounded like it was coming from right behind him. It wasn’t yet too late in the season to be a bear, and it could also be a coyote. The rustles grew louder and louder in his ears. Then, a twig snapped. That was it—he couldn’t risk making his wife a widow. Bill turned around, aimed his shotgun in the direction of the sound, and fired.
He heard the creature fall into the leaves. The recoil of the shot caused the shotgun to smack him in the nose. He could feel warm blood dripping down his upper lip, a stark contrast to the bitter cold he felt on the rest of his face. He put the gun down and wiped the blood with his right hand, soaking his glove. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked at the animal that lay on the ground.
It was Sandra. She’d fallen directly on her back. She wore her oversized black winter coat and her gray, thick-soled boots. Her face was untouched by the gunshot: her torso had taken most of the damage. Gripped tightly in her left hand was his orange vest.
Bill screamed. He stumbled towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her gently until he couldn’t bear to look at her face anymore. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were slightly open. He took the vest from her hand and draped it over her head.
He didn’t leave her until it was fully daylight. He made his way back to the cabin, moaning and sobbing along the way. He walked through the door to see that the fire in the woodstove had reduced to just a few orange embers. As he headed towards the landline in the bedroom, he noticed that Sandra’s crossword puzzle still lay on the table. He picked it up and glanced at the first clue:
“Something to remember, or to want to forget.”
Memory.