Free Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel by Ryan Notch

town, and the sun was over the center of town, from inside the woods the sun always pointed directly towards the edge of the woods.  A navigation point even more accurate than the real sun.  Spencer figured Indian trackers like in the movies could follow his trail, but he didn’t really think Jack could.  Especially considering the forest was almost entirely dead, no vegetation to disturb.  Dead bushes, dead trees, dry logs.  Winter without the cold or snow. 
    He didn’t see any of the monsters, which both relieved and worried him.  He didn’t really want to see one of them ever, but if he was going to run into one he would definitely prefer to do it in the daylight rather than the dark.  He wandered for hours, making his way west according to the plan and frequently stopping to rest his foot. 
    The whole plan for survival rested on one big guess, but it was a pretty good one.  It was a guess that the monsters in the woods needed to eat, and that the food they ate had something to do with that bone pile in back of Nanny Gurdy’s.  They must feed on the bodies of Jack’s failed experiments, which Spencer figured was just about all of them considering how few Perfects there were.  The rest of the plan made assumptions too, but they were obvious enough not to be called a guess.  While living with Julie he had had plenty of time to think it through.  The fact was they would never stop looking for him until he was dead. 
    So he had to die.
    Soon it grew dark, and Spencer was exhausted.  He’d had little exercise in his time with Julie, and discovered traveling through the deep woods was much harder work than he was used to.  A few hours into the night he found a fallen log and made a place for himself underneath it, as well concealed as he could manage.  He spread the blanket on the ground and wrapped himself in it, nibbling on a few pieces of bread that he hoped to make last as long as possible.  The ground was cold and hard.  No more Julie and her soft bed and warm body.  He thought about her standing there in her underwear, trying to imagine what she had wanted to do, wondering if it was like in the movies that he wasn’t supposed to watch.  He thought about her and their time together and felt guilty about what happened to her, whispering an apology to her in the darkness. 
    But he didn’t think about her for long.  He thought about Smiling Jack, just like he used to do every night before falling asleep.  He thought about what would happen if Jack found him in the night.  Thought about waking up to that Smiling face.  He fell asleep trying to keep his eyes open. 
     
    *   *   *
     
    Living with his parents, sitting on the couch watching TV every day, Spencer couldn’t help but feel like the must be something better he could be doing.  He’d climb the tree in the backyard sometimes, noticing how his muscles were getting stronger despite the sedentary lifestyle.  Probably because of the better nutrition.  And rarely he would try and look through a book, remembering how to read.  But overall, if it had been a summer vacation he would have felt he was wasting it. 
    It wasn’t like he didn’t ever leave the house though.  His mom kept making token attempts.  Bringing him to the grocery store or on other errands.  It made him feel paranoid and claustrophobic to be around the people, as if someone was going to make a move on him.  Unknown to her he carried one of the smaller kitchen knives with him wherever he went, often clutching it in his pocket when he got nervous.  He was glad he didn’t really own anything else to carry around, because the damn thing had stabbed a hole in every pocket of every pair of his new pants.
    Eventually after a few weeks his mom got the idea to take him and Baby Suzie to a movie.  At first Spencer had been excited, even though it was a little kids movie.  He didn’t like the idea of being around people, but in a movie no one was going to be paying