I was sent to a small town in Idaho for a summer when I was 15 to live with my Grandma on her farm because my mom was “sick.” I knew she wasn’t really sick. I knew it was the drugs again, and I knew I wouldn’t have a good time there.
My Grandma was pushing 80 physically but might as well have been 180 mentally. She was so senile she was incapable of almost anything other than immediately cleaning the litter box as soon as her cat used it and going to the grocery store each afternoon and making pork chops for dinner.
The only conversation she was capable of was the same one she had been having with me since I was old enough to remember going to visit her.
“Never go where the briars grow,” she would always say.
The briars Grandma was talking about was the vast, sweeping field of thick sticker bushes that rested at the edge of her farm.
Stay out of the briars…check. No problem, Grandma.
My Grandma’s farm hadn’t operated since my Grandpa died almost 20 years before so she just had a big old farmhouse on the edge of town surrounded by empty fields of endless dirt.
The only way I was able to sanely pass the endless scorching Idaho summer days was building bike courses for my BMX with jumps all around the property. I spent countless hours racing around the dirt and competing against myself.
It was a few weeks into summer when she first appeared.
I was on the porch downing a tall glass of water on a 100 degree plus afternoon when I saw a figure strolling through the far edge of the farm field, moving towards the infamous briars, pushing my fucking bike with them.
I took off from the porch and ran across the field as fast as I could. I got there just in time to see someone with a long, red mane of hair walking my prized, customized bike into the briars.
It was a girl about my age (15). Tall and thin with sunken and haunting eyes that looked back just long enough to meet with mine for a fleeting second before she disappeared into the thorns.
I didn’t heed Grandma’s warning. I went into those briars.
I stepped into a completely different world once I ducked below an opening in the stickers.
It was the middle of a red hot afternoon, but it was as dark as dusk underneath the cover of the tall briars. The ground beneath my feet went from soft silty dirt to a thick mud that clung to my sneakers. Underneath the canopy of the tops of the briars, it was obvious several paths had been cleared creating a labyrinth of trails to choose from.
I heard a rustling come from a section of the briars which dropped downward, towards the river.
I followed the path and was welcomed by the fresh footprints of bare feet, which I followed deeper into the briars.
I heard the rustling again. I saw the glimpse of a shadow dash in front of me - just a few feet away, running into the darkness.
And I saw the metallic glint of my bike. I watched my bike shine for a second before it was out of sight and I heard voices pop up all around me.
I wasn’t willing to risk it anymore. I started to retrace my steps as fast as I could and get out of the briars.
I was able to retrace about three of those steps before I was stopped in my tracks.
Standing in the middle of the path was a young boy. Nearly nude. Covered in equal parts scabs, sores, and mud. Muscular and tan.
He just stood there staring at me with dark eyes. All of his muscles seemingly flexed.
I myself was equally measured, stunned and scared.
If only I had known the boy was just a distraction. That two other briars boys had stepped up behind me.
I didn’t know until I tasted a dirty palm on my lips and felt myself pulled backward by powerful arms.
I was helplessly drug backward through the mud and the briars, feeling the thorns rip at my skin all the way until a gunshot went off somewhere in the distance and they let me go.
I laid there in the cold mud watching three shirtless boys, covered in scratches, dispersing into the darkness of the briars all around me.
Whoever was firing that shot saved my life.
I didn’t bother retracing my steps this time. I ran out of those briars as fast as I could, getting my entire body ripped up by the thorns the entire way.
Grandma’s pork chops tasted a little better that night.
I checked my body in the mirror that night and found countless oozing wounds all over my body. I looked like I had a raging case of chicken pox.
I thought about how insane I looked and not drawing a single question from my Grandma confirmed just how deep in her mental condition she was. She didn’t even give me a single sideways look all dinner despite me being the physical condition that I was in.
The back of my neck hurt the most. It burned with a hot pain, much more intense than the rest.
I checked the back of my neck in the mirror the best I could and saw a dried trickle of blood going down the back of my shoulder. It really looked like something serious happened back there.
I tracked down a hand mirror in the bathroom so I could do the barber trick and look at the back of my neck in the hand mirror.
What I saw in the reflection stopped my lungs from breathing.
Etched into my skin was the number 000316, oozing blood and burning my nerves like a fresh tattoo.
I took in the sight for a few moments and then walked over to the window that overlooked the briars. Usually the briars were barely visible even on the most moon-lit of nights.
That night was different. I could see a small fire somewhere in the briars, illuminating the patch and faintly outline dark figures standing just outside of the briars on the side closest to the farm, their heads looking up in my direction.
I closed the blinds.
I didn’t sleep that night.