The Three by Sarah Lotz

now they were bringing them down to the tents. I know you’re mostly interestedin Jake, but I’ll give you an idea of what it was like. When I was at school, we’d studied this old song, ‘Strange Fruit’. About the lynchings that went on in the Deep South. How the bodies hanging from the trees looked like strange fruit. That’s what we saw. That’s what some of those freaky trees were holding as we got closer to where the body of the plane had landed. Only most of the bodies weren’t whole. Couple of the guys puked, but me and Jake maintained.
    Kinda worse than this were the civilians who were stumbling around the scene, calling for their parents or families or loved ones. Most of them had brought offerings–food or flowers. Later, Yoji, who was assigned to help round them up and get them away from the site, told me that he came across one couple who were so convinced their son was still alive, they’d brought him a change of clothes.
    Jake and I were sent to help the guys clear the trees for the helicopter pad, and although it was tough going, it was away from the wreckage and it took our minds off what we’d seen. The NTSB guys didn’t make it till the next day, but by then things were far more organised.
    Our CO said we were to stay at the site that night and we were assigned sleeping quarters in one of the GSDF’s tents. None of us were happy about that. There wasn’t a private there who wasn’t feeling spooked about spending a night in that forest. And not just because of what we’d seen that day. We even spoke in whispers; it didn’t feel right to raise our voices. A few of the guys tried to crack jokes, but they all fell flat.
    Round about three hundred hours, I was woken by a scream. Sounded like it was coming from outside the tent. Bunch of us leaped up and ran out. Shit, my adrenaline was just pumping. Couldn’t see much–the air was full of mist.
    One of the guys–I think it was Johnny, this black dude from Atlanta, good guy–pulled out his flashlight and shone it around. The light was wobbling ’cause his hand was shaking. It settled on this shape a few yards from where we were standing: a figure, its back to us, kneeling down. It turned to look at us and I saw it was Jake.
    I asked him what the fuck was going on. He looked dazed, shook his head. ‘I saw them,’ he said. ‘I saw them. The people with no feet.’
    I got him back into the tent and he fell asleep straight away. The next morning he refused to talk about what had happened.
    I didn’t tell Jakey this, but when I told Yoji about it, he said, ‘Japanese ghosts don’t have feet.’ And he told me that the Japanese witching hour–the
ushi-mitsu
, no way can I forget that word–was 3 a.m. Got to admit, I got spooked again when I heard Pamela May Donald’s message. Stuff she said, well, it sounded too similar to what Jake said that night. I guess I assumed he’d been influenced by what Yoji had told us.
    The other guys busted Jake’s balls about it for weeks afterwards of course. Carried on even when we got back to Camp Courtney. You know the kind of thing: ‘You seen any dead people today, Jakey?’ Jake just took it. I guess it was around that time that he’d started emailing that pastor down in Texas. Before then, he was never into religion. Never once heard him mention God or Jesus. Guess he must have done some Googling about the forest and the crashes, come across that pastor’s website.
    Jake didn’t deploy with the rest of the unit when we were sent to help with the rescue effort after the floods in the Philippines; he got sick, really sick. Stomach pains, suspected appendicitis. Course, now they think he was faking it. They still don’t know how he got off the island. Reckon he must’ve bribed a fishing boat or whaler to take him, something like that; maybe one of the Taiwanese crews who smuggle eel fry or meth in the area.
    I’d give anything to go back in time, ma’am. Stop Jake going into that forest. I know