ST KOV ARGAT A AA AFHEIM haha HuMAN DWELLINGS AL Rail wis Site A AAA
IGHWAY 256 WAS A COLD gray line that stretched through the night splitting the blackness of the woods in two An hour before dawn the hungry world was waking A swarm of insects hummed along the paved shoulder A pheasant ruffled from sleep turned a beady eye across the highway and toward the sound The bird started across the blacktop Whaaaap In a spray of blood and feathers the pheasant was hurled to the side of the road The man behind the wheel of the passing truck glanced in his rearview mirror Next to him sat his daughter hunched down in her seat She yawned and rubbed her eyes What was that Daddy Hunting her father answered We’re going hunting But Daddy it’s posted No hunting We can’t Dumb bird he sighed Pheasant I guess Never knew what hit it Jim McCormack was tired His son Charlie was sick and had spent most of the night throwing up in the bathroom So Jim had endured the long hours stretched out on the living room couch with a blanket while his wife tended to the boy In the dim light Jim had watched the time on the wall clock crawl by and at 5 AM he sat up stalked to his daughter’s bed and gave her a shake Get up Anna he said you and me are going hunting Anna was not a hunter She didn’t even have a license and her experience with a shotgun was limited to one botched session at the skeet-shooting range The gun’s recoil had slammed the stock into her chin and sent her crying into her mother’s arms But Jim wanted to go hunting and he hated to hunt alone So Anna would have to do Daddy why are we stopping here murmured Anna when five minutes later her father pulled the pickup onto a dirt road next to a POSTED NO HUNTING OR TRESPASSING sign
We can do whatever we want here Jim explained This is our land I bought this property yesterday at auction Twelve hundred acres Your mother’s mad at me She thinks we can’t afford it But now it’s McCormack land free and clear Twelve hundred acres of woods hills streams and all the critters that live there This is the one place on earth we can do whatever we want So don’t mind the sign From now on that’s for everybody else but us Jim cut the motor turned off the headlights and lifted two shotguns from behind the seat Zip up your jacket he said stepping out of the truck He pulled some shells from his pocket and slipped them into the trigger mounts of each Remington Then he handed his daughter a shotgun and led the way into the woods This is your brother’s gun he said Treat it like it was your own The forest was much darker than the highway had been Entering the dense undergrowth as vines low-hanging branches and cobwebs brushed their cheeks Anna and her father moved slowly into the woods They made their way by instinct more than sight by chance more than vision the girl staying close to her father’s side Their breath came out in puffs of vapor instantly swallowed by darkness Daddy it’s too dark the girl whispered Where are we going I can’t The sky’s getting brighter her father interrupted Look up past the trees over the hill you’ll see Anna looked but remained unconvinced Oh she cried stumbling on a fallen branch and grabbing her dad’s sleeve The pair wandered on for perhaps a quarter of a mile The sky was brightening just as Jim said it would and a fiery splinter of sun edged up over the horizon They trudged a little farther into the uninviting heart of the forest But neither Jim nor Anna recognized the moment when they stepped across the boundary of their own world and entered another It was a place where few human feet had ever trod Even in daylight the rupture looked like little more than a blur at the edge of sight But now it was growing shape-shifting a gaping hole in the rugged density of the forest It was a gash in the face of time and space and everything that was real The trees on the other side of the opening might have appeared somehow taller the air might have had a sweeter smell but it was at first too subtle a difference to tell Anna and her father would never realize that as they stepped across the void they had left the world they knew completely behind Anna heard the sound first It was like singing The voice was thin and high
