Scratching
This is a continuation of excerpts from The Dream Room Series: Volume One. It’s not necessary to read previous excerpts, but it does help.
At the edge of the forest, the pine trees slightly swayed. There was a clear border between where the forest ended and The Campsite began.
Standing in the clearing was Isaac, the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun resting on his shoulder. The woman resembled a zombie, eyes looked right through him. She kept limping towards him. He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. She walked right by him. He turned, his gaze followed her, she was still a threat and could have been faking.
Isaac whistled under his breath and signalled at the forest. A slight rustling and out of the pine trees popped Blair, her hand at her side, ready to unholster her staff. She nodded to Isaac, he returned the nod. More hand signals, and she took a wide berth from him. They both walked after the woman, each taking a side, surrounding her if things took a turn. As she was taught, Blair mimicked the steps of who she tracked, matching her breathing with the steps. This connected her to the other person or animal, focused her observation, forced her to notice imperceptible changes.
Still oblivious to them, the woman limped towards the main house. Isaac had disarmed the traps surrounding the area. From what he saw, the threat was on her own. He much preferred intimidation to actual violence, despite how their lives had become structured around it. He blamed the world for changing men like himself into someone that outfitted his home with traps and met strangers with sawed-off shot guns.
She made her way to the front door of the main house. She knocked on the door with the heel of her palm. She whispered something over and over. Blair and Isaac closed in on her, close enough for them to hear what she whispered over and over as she scratched on the door: “Help… help… help…”.
Isaac signalled to Blair: Fall back.
Scratch, scratch.
Blair signalled back: No, she needs help.
Scratch, scratch.
Isaac: I will handle it.
Blair: No, let me.
Blair took off her backpack, gently unholstered the black staff, and put it on the ground. She inhaled a breath and took a step towards the porch.
“Help… help… help…”
With another step, she unhooked the stubby water bottle at her side.
“Help… Help…”
Another step, she unscrewed the top of the bottle.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Blair said softly.
“Help…”
She reached the porch and stepped on it with her right foot. She held out the water bottle: “Would you like a drink of water?”
The woman stopped scratching. She slowly turned around to face Blair, who stood as still as a statue, holding out the water bottle. The woman fixated on the water bottle and took a step towards Blair. Nodding slightly, Blair mentally encouraged the woman to take a drink. When she reached the edge of the porch, the woman stopped and stared at her. For some reason, Blair felt no danger, no threat. In fact, she was so disarmed that the water bottle felt heavy in her hand, so heavy it lowered due to the weight. Still they stared at each other.
Then everything happened fast.
With strength and speed that surprised Blair, the woman smacked the water bottle from Blair’s hand and grabbed her by the arms.
Isaac whipped the shot gun from his side and pointed it at the woman.
Wherever she found this strength, Blair didn’t know. Her entire body tensed as she felt the fingernails of the woman grinding into her arms through her jacket.
With her right hand, Blair signalled for Isaac to back off.
He hesitated.
She signalled again, sharply.
He slowly lowered the shot gun.
During all this time, the two of them hadn’t stopped staring into each other’s eyes. The woman’s body might’ve been broken, but her eyes, her eyes told a different story. She was scared, sure, and hungry and hurt, and all that. Her eyes spoke of wisdom, like someone that had lived for decades, and had seen things that she keenly observed and learned from in order to sharpen her place in the world. What else she saw was a familiarity. Clearly, she had never encountered this woman before, but it was as though she couldn’t be sure of that statement without a reasonable doubt.
Blair came back to herself. She took three slow breaths. Her body relaxed in the woman’s arms. She held a neutral expression. Even in the current situation, Blair didn’t feel threatened.
The woman blinked, it was as though she was somewhere else. Like a memory popped into her head and her eyes glazed over and focused on the image in her head. She screamed, a loud and long and piercing cut through the fog and the pine trees. She let go of Blair and held her head in pain. She sank to her knees, still screaming and still holding her head. She crumbled down on to the porch.
Blair looked to Isaac, who was shaking his head, looking around the area to see if this was some kind of signal to others.
The woman passed out. Blair knelt by her side, felt her pulse. She turned towards Isaac, “She needs our help.”
“We can’t help her, Blair,” said Isaac.
“What do we do? Carry her back through the forest and dump her outside of the perimeter and wish her good luck?”
“She could be a threat,” Isaac said. “This could all be a trick.”
“Not everyone is a threat,” Blair said. “Not everything is a trick. Besides, I feel she’s not here to hurt us. You’re the one who taught me to understand my instinct, to know when to listen to it.”
If there’s one thing that Isaac has learned about his granddaughter, it was to trust her gut. She didn’t claim it often, but when she did, he knew he had to listen. He nodded his head, walked over, leaned the shot gun against the outside of the house, and leaned down beside the woman.
Pine Forest watched them go inside the main house as the fog dissipated. There was no wind, but the trees swayed and grunted and warned.
Isaac looked around. “Okay, but I have a compromise: we keep her out here on the porch for now. We check out the extent of her injuries, assess the situation, and determine what to do with her.”
Blair paused. She always paused before speaking. She always chose her words carefully, went over them in her head before speaking out loud. “Agreed,” she said.
“Let me tend to her,” Isaac said. “You have a look around, sweep the place. For me. Just to make sure no one followed her into the forest, and no one is looking to follow her out of it.”
Blair stood, walked over to her black staff, holstered it, and disappeared back into Pine Forest.