A garden in the middle of town.

On his walk home late Saturday night, 12 year old Paul Whittle was passed by three cars. He did not make it home. The first was a red sedan, plate number YTL 304. This was observed by the driver of the second car, sheriff Jamie Dutton. The third car in the line, slightly further back from the others, is yet to be identified and currently under suspicion.

Paul took the sidewalk down Rourke street. On the opposite side of the road was the fire station, surrounded by a few small businesses. The light from their entrances barely made it halfway across the unlit street. On his side was nothing but dark midwest forest. It was early summer and there was still frost in the morning when the Bennets called the Police office to report their son was missing, and still when the sheriff searched her memory of the previous night.

The boy’s body lay in water, in woods, hidden from the road by tall ferns for a month before it was found; miles from where he was thought to have disappeared, eaten away by crows and surrounded by near daily storms and fog. The sheriff had already found the owner of the sedan, a woman in her eighties who lived slightly outside of town, and ruled her out of the investigation. The car that the sheriff had seen behind her, whether it had stopped in the dark or kept driving she could not remember, was still not identified. The boy’s neck had been broken, as well as five ribs, they couldn’t find his lower half.

Tissue samples from beneath his fingernails were sent out, and came back showing no DNA but his own. Hair found on the body was identified as that of a coyote, likely scavenging his remains. The fen he was resting in had begun to grow through him, and the alkaline water preserved his pale husk. Shoots of puzzlegrass and jewelweed reached and rooted in his meat even as he lay on the coroner’s counter. When he was opened, the saw cut as much plant as it did meat, tendrils beginning to explore his veins, rooting in his lungs. His stomach acid was neutralized and replaced by the water he lay in, and duckweed spilled forth when it was punctured.

In small towns like this, the impact of a child’s death is not dulled by distance. The Whittle family were not the most social, but they were far from secluded. As families from around gave their condolences, sheriff Dutton took it upon herself to explore the strip of forest where the body had lay. It was flanked on all sides by busy roads, but almost never itself traversed.

She entered the trees from the stretch of road where he had been found, crossed the ferns that grew tall out of the drainage ditch. The midday light became blotchy, and then dim. A wind picked up swaying the trees, releasing the water held by their leaves, and creating a short subcanopy rain. It had rained or fogged daily for the past month. The small pools that stippled the forest floor were only inches deep but the ground was soft and accepting, and would give way with little weight. The Sheriff's footsteps were labored. As she walked further into the two mile square forest the water became deeper, and she began to avoid it for higher ground.

Small fish swam through the unconnected pools, likely placed there as eggs stuck to the feet of waterfowl. The ground was mossy and soft, but no longer hard to walk on; there was nothing unnatural around. Miraculously not even cans strewn from young, late night, parties had pushed this far into the woods. She did not look for blood, a month of rain wouldn’t have left any. A river ran through the center of the forest. In town it had been forced underground, but in the woods it ran free and deep. She came to it and made her way down stream towards the back of the local Wal-Mart where it drained down. There was no way to cross it in the forest, so she figured she’d go around. The river moved slowly now, the snow melt was long over, and very little water fed in. As she walked, she disturbed small frogs at the bank, which splashed deep into the clear water and came up again to hide in the foliage near the water’s edge. Duckweed does not often grow in moving bodies of water, however the eddying currents of the river, entering the underground drain, stilled it enough for plants to grow across the surface.

She watched large, sallow, trout swimming beneath the covering. The drain had been partially clogged by branches from recent storms, and had created a pool meters across which, while shallow over all, was quite deep at the center. The jam of foliage and small logs sieved the water and had built up a conglomerate of natural and manmade rubbish. The sheriff inspected it and, even from the edge of the vernal pool, noticed a shoe firmly lodged in the center of the mass.

It was pulled out, after the sheriff reported the find, and with it came a foot and part of one leg. The coroner found that the leg had been removed before death. Many of the deep gouges and bite marks on the body were pre mortem as well. On Tuesday morning, the paper ruled Paul Whittle’s death an animal attack. The town was small and there was plenty of woods around where cats would go missing or dogs would run away to interbreed with the coyotes. But still. There was never any risk of life. The people of the town rallied, organised by those with children still alive who worried most. Thursday night, after two days, they entered the woods from three sides. They stormed the ferns and the small pools, making a ruckus to drive out anything large. Sheriff Dutton and John Whittle met on either side of the river along with the line who had entered from the back. They marched downstream stomping and hollering. Ahead of them they heard scrambles, and swifter, quieter movement than their own. Then they heard gunshots, a pause, another few shots, and silence.

When they made it to the edge of the forest, behind the wal-mart, they found three coyotes shot dead on the ground. The rest of the town’s police, a total of three, stood visibly shaken. They explained that, after the coyotes had run out, a large black bear followed. One of them had shot it but only hit a leg, and it just kept going out past the wal-mart. It left a trail of blood which all four of them quickly followed. Up and through the parking lot was a line of dark red blotches. It was past 1 am now and the store was fully closed. They followed the trail through nearby neighborhoods, the drops becoming less and less frequent until they were too far apart to track. They made their way back on foot. Every second street had lights, and their walk went from dim to dark to dim. An orange tabby with one ear and scars over its head watched them, then turned back to the street light where midges, and june bugs, and one lonely cecropia moth fluttered. From the ditches on the sides of the roads, spring peepers rejoiced at being alive. The wind picked up and trees lining the road hissed their leaves, chastising the group, not fast enough to catch the bear.

Reaching the forest at the center of town they split up into their cars and went home. Life will go on in the morning. As the sheriff drove over the potholed and rarely patched streets, she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She hadn’t even seen the beast.

Her yard was far back from the road and full of plants. From two old oak trees, to many rhododendrons and lilacs, to daffodils dying away and peonies just beginning to bloom. It was hazy yet serene in the low moonlight. A vicious wind had blown over the rubbish bin at the end of her driveway and strewn out the contents. This was something else that would wait till morning. She parked in the garage behind her house and took a clockwise path around front. She grabbed her keys, unlocked the bottom lock of the door, tested the handle, and went to unlock the top as well. While she turned the key she heard irregular footsteps behind her and looked back.

Approaching from behind was a black bear, favoring one front leg. On all fours it was as high as her chest, it stood on its hind legs and looked down at her. With a swipe of its paw it knocked her down onto the potted irises beside her door. Its claws had gashed at her left shoulder and she bled into the purple flowers. The bear stood over top of her sniffing her, she played dead, thinking she had heard it was the correct thing to do. The bear sunk its teeth into her injured shoulder and with a scream and a mad flailing she startled it back. It lunged forward, and with her right hand she grabbed her gun and shot at it. She hit its other front leg. With a second shot she hit it in the stomach and it fell.

Inside she called for an ambulance, and then to her station. She layed on her sofa, green and patterned, and left a red stain down one arm that would never wash out. When the paramedics, and the town’s remaining police, arrived the bear was nowhere to be found; but there was a larger trail of blood and, after sitting the sheriff in an ambulance, they followed it into town. This trail did not dry up. The further they went, the more blood washed the street. It took a turn into a two track driveway between two houses and there, in a one car garage, they found it. Still, and dead, in a corner.