Author: Bo Chappell; C. W. Blackwell; Tony Evans; Shawn Lachance
Date: 2019-05-15 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Anthologies
Description: Aphotic Realm presents: Appalachian Horror. The woods have many secrets, but uprooting them has its consequences. Take a trip through America's backyard with eight strange and sinister tales of Appalachia

Aphotic Realm

Owners|Editors:

Dustin Schyler Yoak, A.A. Medina, & Chris Martin Art Director: Gunnar Larsen

APPALACHIAN HORROR

Edited by: Bo Chappell

Interior Artwork by: Bo Chappell

Cover Art Design: A. A. Medina

All stories are owned by the authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial
uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send
an email to the publisher, in the subject, “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the following email address: Questions@ AphoticRealm.com.

www.AphoticRealm.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Aphotic Realm, 2019 All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9781096808039

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD • BO CHAPPELL

END TRAILS • JOHN MORGAN

THE GHOST SANG • JEFFERY X MARTIN

BLOOD IS ALWAYS THICKER • TONY EVANS

THE TOWN OF AFURISIT • CHARITY LANGLY

THE BEND • C. W. BLACKWELL

BRAIDS, LIKE ROOTS • DAMASCUS MINCEMEYER

TRESPASSER • RENEE MILLER

HEMLOCK WINDS • SHAWN LACHANCE

Foreword

After Aphotic Realm invited me to guest edit their next anthology, we all sat down to discuss what theme would be fun to explore. It didn’t take long for us to agree that the scariest place can often be your own backyard.

From the supernatural to the terrifyingly true, stories from the Appalachian Mountains have been home to every conceivable horror lurking just past the blackened trees, nearly invisible if not for the moonlit nights. Inescapable dread nesting ominously in the majestic beauty of the view outside twenty five million people’s window.

Aphotic Realm invited writers to trek into the uncharted and forge a path for their readers.

These are their trails...

Bo Chappell

END TRAILS

JOHN MORGAN

“Do you think he’ll be back?”

The man who spoke, trail name Nugget, did so sullenly, his face lowered as he absently stripped a gnarly branch of its outer layer with grimy, bloodied fingers. But his eyes were turned upwards to consider the man who sat a small distance away with his back against one of the million or so trees that surrounded them.

“Hey, Merlin, I said do you think…” “I heard you,” said the other.

“Well?”

“How should I know? I doubt it; you did punch him in the face, after all.”

Nugget tossed the mangled branch onto the ground and wiped its tacky residue from his hands onto jeans that felt stiff with sweat and filth. A stink was all over him like glue. “Well, he was asking for it,” he replied.

Merlin feigned laughter. “How’d you reckon that?”

“The crazy talk! He just wouldn’t shut up with it… He was starting to give me the cold creeps. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about – I didn’t see you holding me back when I was kicking the shit out of him. The man was just… he was just fucking weird.”

Merlin opened his mouth to say something, his cracked lips looking only marginally better than the branch that Nugget had disposed of. He seemed to change his mind though, and let his expression do the talking instead.

An uneasy silence settled between the two while the mountains sighed, breathed and whispered around them; the trees swaying hypnotically in the steadily cooling breeze.

“It’ll be dark soon,” said Nugget after a while. He waited for a response but didn’t get one. He started again, a little hesitant this time. “Do you think… Do you think we’ll see it again?”

Merlin fidgeted but said nothing.

“I said…”

“I don’t know! Will you please, please, just shut the fuck up! You’re like a fucking record player!”

Nugget stiffened, his cheeks burning. For a moment he thought about giving his trail-mate a bit of the same as what he gave that crazy old fucker the other night. But then he thought, ‘What if they did see it again?’ He shivered and hugged his knees tighter to his chest. No; there was no point getting into a fight. He didn’t want to be out here alone.

They were quiet for a while, listening to the breeze and the occasional creeping footfall of unseen wildlife. The shadows lengthened and started to encroach upon the clearing, pooling like spreading blood.

“I wonder if anyone’s looking for us yet,” Nugget murmured.

Merlin sniffed. “I doubt it. We probably only strayed off the trail a week or so ago and we already told people we were going to thru-hike; it’ll be weeks before the alarm bells start to ring. Plus, you…we… haven’t exactly hit it off with any of the other hikers we’ve met. I doubt they’ll be keeping an eye out for us or wondering where we’ve got to.”

“There were those two girls from Sweden.”

“Are you serious? Man, they couldn’t get away fast enough.”

Another awkward silence followed, both men watching as the shadows congealed into something approaching true darkness.

“Maybe the old guy will find his way out,” mused Nugget when the silence started to get uncomfortable. “Raise the alarm, tell someone we’re lost.”

Merlin nodded. “Maybe,” he said, but without conviction.

The breeze strengthened and brought with it a dank, wet earthy aroma that barely registered against the eyewatering bite of old sweat that soured the air between them.

“Well; I think I’m going to call it a night,” said Nugget, rolling down the sleeves of a shirt that felt almost greasy with his excretions.

Merlin eyed the thickening shadows. “Yeah,” he said. “Guess I will as well…”

They both struggled to their feet and trudged to their respective tents. “Merl,” Nugget called.

“What?”

“Seriously… what do we do if we see it again?”

Merlin’s expression was unreadable as he considered the other man for a long moment. “I don’t know, Nugget,” he said, ducking into the tent. “Really... I just don’t know.”

§

The night passed badly for both men. They lied awake for most the night, listening to the wind hammer at their flimsy tents and to a spattering of flint-like rain that drifted over a shade or two past midnight.

And then there was the screaming. The crying. The wailing. Some of it was distant and barely audible in the wind, but some of it was closer to home. Neither one of them went out to investigate. Merlin had made the mistake of doing just that about three nights ago, and he still wouldn’t talk to Nugget about what had happened.

At one point, it must have been about two, maybe three in the morning, Nugget heard a branch snap a little distance from his tent. His heart jack-hammered between his ears as he held his breath and listened to the shuffling footsteps that passed mere inches from his head.

“Mommy?” he heard a voice - high and twinkling like an Angel’s. “Mommy? Where are you, Mommy? I’m lost, mommy, and so, so scared.”

The voice changed even as the words were uttered. It deepened, aged, became throaty and disjointed as if the speaker was trying to force the words through a mush of wasted, semi-liquid muscle. And then the awful, hellish laughter began, accompanying what might have been a hand dragging along the fabric of the tent, its finger nails catching and tearing at the tarpaulin like needles.

Nugget waited for the inevitable; for whatever it was out there to play ever so tantalisingly with the zipper at the entrance to his tent but, perhaps mercifully, he had forgotten to breath throughout the incident and, thank the sweet Jesus, blacked out.

§

Merlin knew it was no good. He was never going to sleep; there was no point even trying. He looked at his watch and saw it had just gone past eight o’clock. He felt groggy and sick with lack of sleep but decided it was better to get this over with and take a look outside. He slowly raised the tent’s zipper, his breath a plug in his throat.

There it was, just as he knew it would be. He glimpsed it though the widening aperture of the entrance even before the zip had reached the top.

The tent.

It stood a few metres from where Nugget’s was pitched: a bright sickly yellow, but dark in a lot of places from where the fabric was ominously stained on the inside. He could hear the flies even from here: an angry knot of frantic activity.

And the smell. Oh, dear God, the smell. He could taste it, even above the thick slab of stink that radiated from his own uncleanliness. He could feel his gag reflex struggling against the fog of decay and putrescence that seeped from the nightmare tent.

“Nugget,” he called. It was little more than a whisper, really. “Nugget!”

From Nugget’s tent, he heard a stir of movement. “It’s there again isn’t it,” he heard Nugget proclaim, matter-offactly.

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

“Get your stuff together,” Merlin said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They packed their things as silently as they could. The sound of the flies seemed louder now, if that were possible. And every now and then, they would hear the low, muted pops and wheezing of gases being slowly released.

Every morning. Every goddamn morning since becoming lost, they had awoken to see the same tent. They had never looked inside, not even on that first morning when they had momentarily felt a surge of relief that they might now be with another hiker who would know the way back to the trail. It hadn’t taken long for that sense of relief to evaporate, though. Nugget had taken a couple of steps back when he noticed the staining a second or two before the stench ambushed them.

Only Irish, the old hiker who Nugget would later punch and cast out, had the balls to take a look, and that was probably because he was still half pissed from the whiskey he had consumed the night before. It seemed that half the weight the old man carried on his hike was down to booze. He had poked his head inside the entrance of the tent, not even bothering to say hello or to ask if anybody was inside, and Merlin would swear to this, in that brief couple of seconds that Irish had his head in the tent, it seemed the old man lost his mind.

They saw him buck as if touched with a cattle-prod, and then he slowly retreated and scooted back a distance on all fours, his eyes, impossibly wide, never leaving the tent. He never spoke about what he saw inside the tent. In fact, he looked confused whenever asked the question, as if he didn’t know what the hell they were on about. This was when the “crazy talk”, as Nugget had called it, started up.

The two men quickly chose a path and disappeared into the woods, their motion churning up the light mist that curdled amongst the dense trees. The air was eerily silent apart from the sound of the flies that followed them for longer than they would have thought possible. It was a long while before they spoke and, even then, it wasn’t about the tent. They never spoke about the tent anymore.

Not for the first time, Nugget commented that they surely to God must be close to a town by now, and maybe they should head for higher ground to see if they can spot any signs of life. Merlin agreed, and they headed towards what looked like a promising vantage spot – a steep, wooded ridge from which an almighty lip of rock protruded.

Nugget would not shut up; not for a single freaking minute. He talked about everything and absolutely nothing at all, but Merlin didn’t mind. He knew the man was only trying to distract himself from the weighty silence that still hung around them like a guilty conscience.

When they finally reached the shelf of rock, their bodies doused in sweat and their legs laced with burning, copper wires, they were disheartened to see that they had already used up most of the day’s light. Worse still, the scene before them was a seamless, hilly carpet of forest that stretched in all directions to a horizon that looked to be a hundred lifetimes away.

“Man, this is total bullshit!” Nugget spat. “How the fuck could we be so lost? There’s nothing! I mean, there’s literally nothing anywhere!”

“Just calm it down, will you? Take it down a notch.”

“Calm it down? Look at it, Merl! Look at it. We’re fucking dead.”

Merlin ran a hand through hair matted with grease. For a moment he played with the idea of reminding Nugget that it was he who lost the GPS in the first place, and he who, for reasons Merlin still didn’t understand, had been hellbent on deviating from the trail. “It’ll be evening soon,” he said. “Let’s just wait a while, have something to eat, and see if we can spot any lights when the sun starts to go down. Like you say, we can’t be that lost. There’s got to be something out there.”

Nugget was silent a moment. He looked from Merlin to the vast green expanse below and then lowered his head with a sigh. He nodded, speechless.

§

They shared an energy bar, one of the three they had left, and watched as the sun dipped the little distance towards the fanged treetops on the horizon. The cloudless sky deepened through a moody spectrum of blues and fruity purples, and both watched the darkening forest for tell-tale lights.

“There’s nothing out there…” Nugget murmured to himself. “Nothing at all.”

“Then we head in the opposite direction,” said Merlin, struggling to his feet. “Come on; let’s get moving. We need to find somewhere suitable to pitch tents before it gets too dark... Nugget?”

Nugget remained seated on the rocks, staring out over the gently stirring forest. “Nugget?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“I said don’t call me that. The name’s Steve. Just call me Steve. No more of this fucking trail-name shit. I don’t think we’re exactly on a nice little hike through the woods anymore, do you?”

“No; I guess we’re not. Okay Steve, so how about we get moving?”

Steve remained seated for a long beat before getting to his feet with a pained groan. The man seemed to have aged weeks in the past few days, and it wasn’t just the facial hair and the dirt ingrained around the eyes and on his forehead. No, it was the eyes themselves. He looked dazed, exhausted, like a man digging his own grave.

Merlin watched as Nug–Steve–shuffled by and wordlessly made his way towards the treeline, his shoulders slumped low and his feet dragging across the dusty rocks. Merlin readjusted his backpack and followed with the briefest glance back towards the dark, unbroken forest below.

They soon picked up on a ‘ghost’ trail that was barely perceptible and looked as if it hadn’t been walked in years. They followed it until dusk began to bleed out into darkness and the temperature started to dip. They found a few markers too faded to read but which Merlin took heart from.  They must have been directions to some place.

Merlin was just about to suggest that they pitch their tents for the night when they heard slow, steady footfalls approaching from behind. Both men stopped and turned to look back up the trail. The trees crowded in on both sides and a vaporous mist was fingering its way towards them through the shadows. Merlin cocked his head at the silence that suddenly seemed to fill the world. Even the wind, which had been rustling through the trees like sea surf, had fallen ominously silent.

From further on down the thin, strangled trail, they heard the short, sharp crack of a branch breaking underfoot.

Merlin felt Steve tense at his side.

Another branch broke.

Another.

And then a shadow came stumbling into view on the trail, emerging from around the bend and staggering forward a few drunken steps. The figure stopped for a moment and rocked on its feet, forward and backward, then side to side. The head was lowered, its arms held slightly out to the side as if for balance.

The figure burst forward a few jittery steps, and Merlin uttered a curse whilst taking an involuntary step backwards.

“Irish?” Steve whispered.

Merlin glanced across. “What?”

Steve was frowning quizzically, his head cocked. “I think… I think it’s Irish.”

Merlin turned back to the figure before them. It too seemed to be cocking its head now, and Merlin felt that it was sniffing at the air, sniffing them out. It slowly straightened itself out, and Merlin had to agree there was something vaguely familiar about the stoop of the shoulders and the gangly legs. The figure continued forward, pausing a beat after every couple of steps. It – he – was about twenty feet away now and still featureless in the shadows.

Merlin slowly lifted his right hand and reached for the clip-on torch he had attached to the shoulder-strap of his backpack. He thumbed the light on and directed the narrow beam at the approaching figure.

“Jesus…” Steve muttered.

The beam wavered as Merlin’s hand trembled, the light quivering about the slack Halloween mask that was Irish’s face. The mouth hung open like a tear in wet dough while the soulless eyes were little more than blood-rimmed craters that allowed the torchlight to shine clear through.

“Oh, dear God…” Merlin sensed Steve backing away up the trail and could hear the hysteria bubbling up in those three short words.

Irish staggered to a halt again and tilted his head. He seemed to crouch down a little, like he was getting ready to burst into a run. He sniffed at the night air, and his ‘face’ seemed to draw in and pucker around the nose like it was a patch of damp tissue only tentatively attached to the bone beneath.

“Get off the trail,” Merlin whispered.

“Wh…what?”

“Get. Off. The. Trail.”

Merlin quietly stepped aside towards the trees and had to glance down to make sure he wasn’t about to step on a fallen branch or anything else that would make a sound. Behind him he heard Steve, the fucking idiot, scuffling about trying to find a tree to hide behind.

Merlin felt the breath lock in his throat.

He froze. Even his hand was steady as the torch light fell dead on the papery not-quite-a-face before him.

Irish grinned.

And Merlin felt his blood flush cold.

Irish blurred forward at an inhuman pace, letting loose an empty, hollow howl that sounded like a distant, winter storm. Merlin staggered and fell backwards off the path and into the verge. Irish scampered blindly past, his arms pinwheeling round with fleshless hands hooked into gouging tools. Steve screamed and took off down the trail, the dead thing close at his heels. Merlin struggled to his feet and, after two or three hesitant seconds, chased after them.

He saw Irish ahead of him and felt his gorge rise at
the sight. The man had been cleaved open straight down the middle; from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. His innards sagged from his exposed ‘shell’ like some horrific sea food, the piping of his intestines trailing in the dirt behind him.

Up ahead and out of sight, Steve was screaming like a lunatic.  The light from Merlin’s torch was dancing all over the place and stabbing at shadows. The thing that used to be Irish gibbered incoherently and took to chasing Steve on all fours. It vaguely crossed Merlin’s mind that he had no idea what he was doing. Why the hell wasn’t he running the other way? What was he planning to do if he caught up with them?

Steve was starting to whimper now. Actually whimper. And that’s when the thing that used to be Irish erupted into a wet mess. Merlin barely had time to register it. He didn’t notice as the thing’s trailing innards snagged on the undergrowth and quickly unravelled like thread from a spool of cotton. It happened so fast, Merlin mercifully didn’t have time to think about the thick, muddy sound that the old man’s innards made as they were torn out of his casing along with what remained of his skeleton.

Merlin staggered to a walking pace, his face twisted at the sight of the mewling mess before him. He walked around it, avoiding the gore like it was a contagion. He heard Steve heaving his guts up and looked to see his trail-mate leaning against a tree, his skin so white it looked luminous against the gloom. Merlin walked over to him, his own chest jackhammering after the run. After a while, when he was sure that he wasn’t going to chuck up as well, he said the only thing he could think to say. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened, and he sure as hell knew that Steve wouldn’t either.

“Let’s…let’s just find somewhere to pitch the tents.”

In the end, they didn’t have to. They came across a small, wooden shelter, open-fronted and just about big enough for the two of them and their gear. It looked ridiculously small, but neither one of them were about to complain. It was the first shelter they had seen since straying off the Appalachian Trail and, although they weren’t about say it, both men wondered if this was a sign that they had finally stumbled back onto it.

They were asleep as soon as they lay down.

And they both dreamed of dead things.

§

Steve was the first to see it, and his mouth went dry at the sight of it. He stared at the entrance of the nightmare yellow tent. It was right there, right in front of them, its halfunzipped entrance pushed so tight against the front of the shelter that only a hint of daylight was visible.

The flies were deafening. It set his teeth on edge. Steve could see a cloud of them through the slight gap between the flaps, glinting back at him like a thousand eyes. And the stench… the stench was horrific. Even breathing through his mouth, the stink of putrescent meat caked his nostrils and made his eyes burn.

Not daring to say a word, he prodded at Merlin until he heard him mumble and stir awake. “What? What do you wa…?”

Merlin stiffened.

Something shifted inside the tent with a wet, gelatinous gurgle and a fresh wave of toxic air mushroomed from between the entrance flaps. Steve felt hot bile bubbling up his throat. “What do we do?” he whispered. From out the corner of his eye he noticed Merlin shaking his head.

“There isn’t enough room to get round,” Merlin responded.

“It’s only a tent,” Steve murmured, reasonably. “It’s fabric. You can just shove your round.”

“Me?” Merlin hissed, “Why not you?” He imagined his body coming into contact with that awful yellow fabric, that fabric that looked mottled with dark matter on its inside, and shivered. “I don’t want to go anywhere near it.”

Movement again from inside the tent. Steve thought he saw the zipper move upwards an inch, and his stomach churned. The entire world seemed alive with the buzzing of flies.

“What the hell are we going to do?”

The tent shivered and twitched as the thing inside spasmed with a series of grunts and wheezing groans. The zipper slowly moved upwards another inch. Then another. Then another. Steve watched it, mesmerised. For a neverending moment, the zipper was his entire world.

And then he felt a hand on his shoulder. Merlin. His face was inches from his own and yelling at him to kick, to kick! Steve didn’t know what he was talking about, but then Merlin started to kick out at the old wooden boards behind them. The shelter was an old one and looked as if it had been neglected generations ago. The wood buckled easily, popping at the seams. Steve grinned and started to join in, the tinder-dry boards snapping apart with almost no resistance. Not believing their luck, he chanced a glance at the tent…

He stopped kicking. His eyes went wide. His mouth yawned wide… wide… wider still, getting ready for the scream that was to follow.  He grabbed hold of Merlin in a desperate, clawing hand as his bladder loosened. Even though he didn’t want to, even though he knew he shouldn’t, Merlin turned to look at the tent.

Merlin started screaming before Steve did.

§

Brendon Hughes, trail name Big Bear, could tell by the sunlight filtering through the fabric of his tent that it was going to be a glorious morning. At least, it would be if his wife, Cheryl trail name Vixen (although he could think of a few more choice names after the argument the previous night), would lighten up and try to enjoy the goddamn experience. He glanced over and considered her spotty, pug-nosed face as she slept, and sighed deeply. It was something he did most mornings. It was something of a ritual these days.

As quietly as he could, he manoeuvred himself out of his sleeping bag and tiptoed to the entrance of the tent. He tried his level best not to wake his wife in case she started off at him again (and she would!). He winced at the memory of last night’s fight, not that he was feeling at all guilty about it. After all, it wasn’t his fault they were lost, and it certainly hadn’t been his decision to leave the phones at home.

Big Bear bent down to raise the zipper and heard his knees creak ominously in the process (not for the first time, wondering if he had it in him to complete the trail). Stepping out into the unsure morning, he felt the sun warm his aching limbs and stretched to get most of the night’s kinks out of his muscles.

And that’s when he saw the tent.

The bright yellow tent.

Although, he noticed it wasn’t bright all over. It looked like it might be stained in places. Big Bear grinned and sighed in silent relief. Thank Christ for that, he mused. Someone who can give us directions.

John Morgan has been a life long fan of horror fiction. He is a member of the Ghost Story Society (UK) and has been published in numerous magazines such as Dark Tales and Necrotic Tissue, as well as the anthologies Night Terrors II and Unspeakable: A New Breed Of Terror.

THE GHOST SANG

JEFFERY X MARTIN

The constant haze in the air from coal fires made the town look as if it had been slapped together in grayscale. Houses along crumbling roads were held together by both the sheer will of their inhabitants and visible duct tape. When Robin drove by in her shiny red SUV, dirty children stood in postage-stamp yards and stared at her in frightened awe. With her long blond hair and aviator sunglasses, she looked like a queen, a goddess, something from a story their grandparents would have told them. The town of Chamlett, West Virginia, was dying.

It was perfect.

Robin planned on taking hundreds of pictures in Chamlett. Look at the poverty in Appalachia. See the cracked, scarred hands of the old women. Hovels in the hills with corrugated tin walls. The thick smoke rising from breaking chimneys. A region mired in its own filth, a people mistaking their own death throes for survival.

After the appropriate tweaking with various editing programs, Robin would pick thirty of her best photos and send them to her editor in Chicago. He was a prick, and he would discard most of them. She would get twelve into the magazine, if she was lucky, with a blurb, three hundred words or less, to describe them. It was ridiculous. Robin had been to school for this. Her degrees in visual arts and journalism hung in the living room of her apartment in Michigan. Now, with photo manipulation the norm and cameras on every phone, everyone thought they were a professional photographer.

But those people were wasting their intuition and natural ability on selfies and cute cats. They weren’t out in the thick of it like Robin was, spending time in lousy little towns, taking candid pictures of people who didn’t care about hygiene or proper speech. It was a sacrifice. Even though Robin was beginning to find her true self within her artistic niche, she was always happy to be home with her cable television and espresso machine. Tarpaper and wood stoves didn’t cut it for her. Robin Graves dabbled in poverty, but that didn’t mean she had to live in it.

In what Chamlett optimistically referred to as their downtown area, most buildings on the main street were for lease or rent. From the age on the hand-lettered signs, they had been abandoned for years. A yellowed flyer for a weekly food pantry fluttered in the oily breeze from a telephone pole. There was a thrift store, only open on weekends, the messy display window redolent with used baby clothes and disparate toys. The dollar stores had not found Chamlett yet. It was a boom town gone bust, leaving behind nothing but government assistance checks and litter.

Robin parked her vehicle in front of a shattered storefront window. No one had bothered to sweep the glass from the sidewalk. She checked her look in the rear-view mirror, fluffed her hair. If she were going to gain the trust of the fine people of Chamlett, she wanted to look good, approachable. Satisfied, Robin placed her camera around her neck, opened the car door, and got out. The short blast of the horn as she locked the vehicle with her fob echoed off the dirty brick and pothole-riddled asphalt. Robin was startled; she hadn’t realized how quiet the place was until there was sound.

Structurally, Chamlett was too good to be true. She raised the camera to her eye. Everywhere Robin looked, she found a perfect portrait of neglect. A black and white series seemed right for this shoot. The broken down cars alongside the railroad track. Tables and chairs inside a closed diner, waiting for patrons who would never come. Robin could even see a ketchup bottle, layered thick with grease and dust. That would be a great shot, suitable for framing. She would feature it for purchase on her personal website, which had gotten a grand steaming total of twentyeight unique page views. That was awful, but what did she expect at this point in her career, when she was just beginning to build her brand? Maybe her small following was smaller than she wanted it to be.

“Can I help with you somethin’?”

Robin had not heard the man walk up behind her. She let her camera hang from the strap around her neck, turned, and smiled. “Oh, hello,” Robin said to him, extending her hand. “I was just taking some pictures.”

The guy was rail thin, as if he were enduring a wasting disease. He only had one arm, and one flannel sleeve of his shirt hung loosely by his side. He did not smile. Briefly, he regarded her hand with disgust. Robin withdrew it, embarrassed at being left hanging. So much for being friendly with the locals.

“That your car?” he asked.

Robin nodded. “It is.”

The man spat on the ground, the wad of phlegm landing an inch away from Robin’s leather boot. “Get in it,” he said. “Drive off. Get on up out of here.”

“I don’t think you can legally make me do that,” Robin said. She had shifted position. Hands on hips, she stuck out her chin and turned one foot sideways. She was a modern woman, not about to be railroaded by some Appalachian hillbilly.

“Legal got nothin’ to do with it,” the man said. “You ain’t welcome. Now, go on. Scat.”

“Now, look,” Robin said. “I’ve got permission forms and waivers in the car. I won’t take any pictures of you, or anyone else, until you sign off on them. That’s a promise. But I can take pictures of houses and empty buildings all I want.”

The man made a fist with his remaining hand. His mouth scrunched down into an exaggerated frown, his eyebrows practically meeting on the bridge of his nose. “You city people,” he growled. “Think you know everything? Think you can just do whatever? Well, you can’t! Not here!”

He moved closer to Robin, but she stood her ground, ready for anything. After all, the guy only had one arm. One quick kick to his scant side, and she could make it to the safety of her vehicle before he managed to get to his feet.

“Is there a problem here, Buddy?” The escalating argument was interrupted by an elderly man, wearing a threadbare suit from what must have been the 1950’s. Anachronistically dapper, his tie was old, but straight. His shoes were shiny, and he carried a decorative cane. Buddy turned to the man, then pointed at Robin with his only index finger.

“She come down from the city, Ezzer! Takin’ pictures, talkin’ smart.” Buddy’s tone was petulant, like a child tattling to his teacher. Robin half expected him to start stamping his foot.

Ezzer smiled beatifically and raised his hand, trying to calm Buddy down. “Now, now,” Ezzer said. Robin wanted to snap their picture, to capture their awkward father/son dynamic, but didn’t dare because of the hubbub.

“What if she starts takin’ pictures of the kids, Ezzer?” Buddy asked, furious at the thought of it. “What if she’s here for the sang, Ezzer? How about that? Can’t have her here for that! You know what them black market people are like, Ezzer. She’s out here to steal the sang, Ezzer! We can’t have her here!”

“Calm down, Buddy! Calm down.” Ezzer placed a hand on Buddy’s chest, effectively quieting him down. The old man smiled at Robin, instantly charming.

“You’ll have to excuse my enthusiastic friend,” Ezzer said. “He remembers a couple of decades ago when we had a photographer show up in town. Caused a ruckus, he did. Went missin’. Don’t believe they ever found him.”

“I was unaware of that,” Robin said. “And I meant no disrespect.”

“I’m sure you didn’t mean no harm,” Ezzer said.

“Buddy here is just overreacting, being protective.” “Are you the mayor?” Robin asked.

Ezzer laughed and shook his head. “Oh, my, no.” “Ezzer’s the richest man in town!” Buddy exclaimed. “He’s the Sang King!”

It was hard for Robin not to smirk. Ezzer dressed like a poor man’s idea of a millionaire, and he tried too hard to sound refined. Robin wasn’t sure who the gentleman thought he was fooling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The Sang King?”

“He means ginseng, young lady,” Ezzer said. “Please forgive me, I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“I’m Robin. Robin Graves.”

“And who do you work for, Miss Robin?” Ezzer asked politely.

“I’m freelance,” she said. “Right now, I’m on assignment for a magazine in Chicago.”

“Chicago!” Ezzer said. “My, my, my.” He clucked his tongue and smiled wistfully.

“I’m supposed to be documenting the poor and disenfranchised in Appalachia,” she said, adding quickly, “Their words. Not mine.” There were more descriptors Robin could have added but chose not to. Ezzer seemed like he could be an ally, and it was smart not to alienate him right away.

“Ezzer grows sang,” Buddy chimed in. “He’s rich! Got him ten or twelve acres up in the hills. He’s the Sang King! He grows sang like no one else does!” Buddy’s beaming smile revealed gaps where three teeth should have been. His pride in being Ezzer’s friend had completely changed his attitude. All the fight had gone out of him.

“Have you ever seen a ginseng farm, Miss Robin?” Ezzer asked. “Chamlett still thinks of itself as a mining town. That’s how Buddy here lost his arm, down in the mines. But I think a couple of hours taking pictures of sang, understanding the process of how it’s cultivated and all that, might end up being of interest to your readers.”

“Well, sure,” Robin said. “I guess.” It was a weird shift, going from being despised on sight and almost kicked out of town to being under the protection of the richest man in town. But, if spending time with Ezzer legitimized her in the eyes of the residents of Chamlett, then so be it. “Yeah. That sounds great.”

Ezzer grinned. “Wonderful! I’ll tell you what, Miss Robin. Grab the things you need from your car, and we’ll run up to the house real quick.”

“I think I would rather drive, if that’s all right with you,” Robin said.

“You ain’t got to worry about that. Buddy will watch your car for you,” Ezzer said. “I guarantee you’ll find everything just as you left it when we return.”

“Show her the ghost sang, Ezzer!” Buddy said. His voice quavered, bordering on hysterical laughter. “Don’t nobody else grow the ghost sang! Nobody else in the whole world!”

“All right, then,” Robin said. “Let me get my stuff.” She hustled across the empty street and unlocked her car. The tripod would probably be too bulky if she were going to spend a good amount of time walking. That could stay. The cases of lenses was a good idea, though, as were the waivers. She thought about taking her phone, but there was no signal in Chamlett anyway. With a small grunt, she tossed it into the glove compartment. She was traveling light, but she hoped it would all be worth it. The most she could do was take a few photos and listen to the old man talk. After all, Robin had a nice place back home. Credit cards. All the poor had to give were their stories.

That was it, then. Camera and lenses. A guerilla expedition into the great unknown. Robin smiled, locked her car, and went rejoined Ezzer on the other side of the street.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

“Then, let’s go for a ride,” Ezzer said, bowing deeply. It was quaint, and Robin couldn’t help but giggle.

“Show her the ghost sang, Ezzer!” Buddy repeated as they walked away.

“Don’t you worry, Buddy,” Ezzer cooed, over his shoulder. “I will.”

§

Looks were deceiving. To an average person, Ezzer appeared to be a frail, eighty-year-old churchgoer, but he drove his Jeep like a speed demon. The seat belt wasn’t enough security for Robin. She held onto the flimsy door and gritted her teeth as Ezzer took hard, sharp curves without slowing down. He seemed to find glee in aiming for every deep rut in the dirt road as they went up into the mountains.

Ezzer talked the whole time, but there was no top on the Jeep, and half the time, all Robin could hear was the sound of wind and the roar of the engine. It was also difficult to pay sufficient attention when Robin was convinced she was about to go sailing over the steep side and into a ravine.

“Ain’t too many folks in Chamlett,” Ezzer said. “Twohundred, maybe? Two-hundred and fifty? Hard tellin’. I reckon I know every one of them, though, and they know me.”

“Buddy sure seems to like you,” Robin said, the vehicle taking another hard dip, jolting her out of her seat.

“Buddy’s slow,” Ezzer said. “He’s had a hard life.

There’s not much for a man like Buddy to do in a place like this but drink and pick fights. It’s sad, really. Chamlett’s dying, Miss Robin.”

“If you’re the richest man in town, why haven’t you left? Moved to a better area? Gotten a better car?” She ducked out of the way of a low tree branch.

“What?” The question surprised old Ezzer. “Well, I can’t leave my hometown, can I? I’ve always lived here. Can’t just pick up stakes and go elsewheres. Besides, I’ve got my sang fields to think about.”

Up and up they traveled until Robin’s ass felt like a punching bag. She was sure she there would be bruises. At last, they came to a flat place. Ezzer slowed down, put the Jeep into neutral, and cruised to a stop. “We’re here,” he said.

Robin was expecting to see, if not a manse, then at least a nice modern home. Instead, Ezzer got out and walked towards a ramshackle cabin. It seemed askew, off-center. From her vantage point, Robin could see loose wooden planks, pointing upwards on the front porch. Nature was on the verge of reclaiming it. Ivy and weeds took the place of siding.

“Well, it ain’t much,” Ezzer said, “but it’s home.”

Trying not to show her disappointment, Robin gathered her things and followed Ezzer into the house.

Inside, it was filthy. Empty food and drink cans littered the kitchen. An old portable television sat on a tray in the corner, foil-wrapped rabbit ears aimed toward the dirty window. Ezzer’s couch had three legs. It listed visibly towards the brown shag carpet. “I’m bound to put on my work clothes,” Ezzer said, gesturing grandly towards the living room. “Make yourself at home.” He toddled off towards the back bedroom.

Robin looked around, afraid to touch anything. She had to pee, but if the living room and kitchen looked like that, what horrors might lie in the bathroom? There might be a raccoon in the toilet. Instead, she got paperwork ready for Ezzer to sign and made sure none of her camera equipment had shattered on the trip. After a few test shots of the squalor Ezzer lived in, she deemed everything undamaged. As she put the camera strap around her neck, she considered herself ready to go.

Ezzer emerged into the kitchen wearing a dirt-streaked t-shirt, overalls, and a pair of work boots. “Miss Robin,” he said, “let’s go look at some sang, you want to?”

“I want you to sign that first,” Robin said, handing him the waiver on a clipboard.

Ezzer smiled. “Well, that’s fine,” he said, picking up the pen with difficulty. It took him a full minute to sign his name, and Robin felt more than a twinge of pity for him. This poor old man, living in trash in a shitty handmade house in the hills of Appalachia. Ezzer certainly had the townsfolk believing he was wealthy. Did he believe his own lies? It was a rotten existence, as far as Robin was concerned, and she couldn’t wait to get to a nice hotel somewhere. She believed that civilization was built around the availability of hot showers. After a day in Chamlett, the thought of a sparkling white bathtub filled her with hope.

Ezzer put the pen down. “It’s official, now,” he said. “Now, come on! I got things to show you.”

Robin followed the man out onto the porch. He grabbed the rusty shovel leaning against the doorjamb.

“Get you a picture of that view,” he said. “When it ain’t misty or foggy, this here is right pretty.”

Robin snapped a couple of shots, more to placate Ezzer than anything else. She had heard it before. When there was nothing else to be proud of, poverty-stricken people reveled in the outdoors, as if they had created it themselves. Ezzer stepped down onto the ground, and Robin went with him.

As they trudged across the acreage, the old man became a fount of information. Ezzer pointed out how the ground sloped downward, which was excellent for natural drainage.

“Look at all these trees I got here,” he said. “All of ‘em hardwoods. Oaks, maples, some birch trees. The sang loves to grow around hardwood. Can’t take the direct sunlight. Has to grow in the shade. It likes some undergrowth, too. It’s a bit of a hider! Most people wouldn’t know ginseng if they stepped on it.” “Easy to miss?”

Ezzer laid a finger on one side of his nose, as if he were telling a secret. “You got to know what you’re looking for, Miss Robin. See, darned near everybody grows American ginseng. Makes sense. We’re in America. There’s even a state program here in West Virginia for people to grow the sang. Harvest fetches some decent money, but it takes forever to turn a profit. You don’t sell the leaves. You sell the roots. And those can take ten years or longer to reach full maturity. Then you gotta dry ‘em, and maybe grind

‘em, it all depends.”

“Sounds scientific,” Robin said.

“Don’t feel like science if you do it all the time.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Robin asked, stopping every once in a while to take photographs. A bird. Ezzer from the side. Trees. More trees. Boring. The kind of pictures you would find in a chiropractor’s office.

“This was my daddy’s place,” Ezzer said. “Some of these plants have been in the ground for sixty, seventy years. The older they are, the more money they fetch. But look here at this.”

He pointed down at the ground with his shovel. “See them red berries?” Robin nodded and crouched to get a close-up of the pretty fruit.

“Them’s sang seeds,” Ezzer continued. “You got to plant them nearby where you harvest, make sure they’re in a good seedbed, or else you’re cuttin’ your own throat. That plant will have some good roots in a few years.”

Robin got to her feet. “How much ginseng can you harvest in a year?”

“A fair bit,” Ezzer said, with a chuckle. “But that ain’t nothin’. Anybody can do that. The thing I want to show you is just down here a ways.”

Ezzer trudged on, Robin in tow. Soon, under the shade of a clutch of hickory trees, Ezzer stopped. “This is the special thing,” he said. “This is the sang ain’t no one else has.”

At Robin’s feet were striated green leaves with black edges, sticking up through a carpet of decaying leaves. Robin, who knew nothing of botany, thought they looked like any other plant she had seen in public parks or garden centers. It was leafy. Big deal. The tiny green thing was one step away from being a salad.

“Is this what Buddy was talking about?” Robin asked. “The ghost sang?”

Ezzer grinned and nodded. “Let me show it to you,” he said. “Come on down here. Get a good look at it.” He sank to his knees, slowly, balancing himself with one hand on a tree trunk as he did. Robin did the same, only more quickly, with the strength and resilience of the young. She stared at the ground patiently and waited for Ezzer to continue his ginseng litany.

“You can’t rightly tell,” Ezzer began, “but the ghost sang vines out. It don’t stay separate. They all touch other. That’s unique. And when you grub it out, you get it in your hands, and the roots look like a person. That’s normal, too, I suppose. But when I dry it out, it doesn’t turn white or yellow like regular sang does. It goes clear.”

“Clear?” Robin asked. “You mean, transparent?”

“Yep! So it looks like a ghost. You can see right through it,” Ezzer said, pulling himself up. “It’s the damnedest thing. I’ve got some hanging in the drying shed. We’ll be there in a bit.”

“And that ghost sang brings in the big money?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ezzer said. His voice was singsong, like the prospect of a tremendous income boost was no big deal.

“It just seems like this ghost sang would be a huge cash crop,” Robin said, gently moving the leaves aside to get a better shot of the plants. She was already planning how to compose shots of the ghost sang in the drying shed. Put the clear roots against something black? Find something striped that would show through? It didn’t matter. She would figure it out.

“Money isn’t the issue,” Ezzer said. “I just need enough for me and my sang. It takes a little doing to keep this ghost sang going. You can understand that. It’s unique.”

Robin nodded her head. Ginseng was more interesting than she had thought.

“Now, here’s a thing people what don’t grow sang don’t know,” Ezzer said. “When you harvest it, you don’t ever use a shovel. That metal will bust up the roots, and then you got nothin’. I got a couple sticks I use. My sang sticks. And I grub around in the dirt, a few feet out from the leaves, and gently work the sang out.”

“Oh!” Robin exclaimed. “It’s almost like a hardy, pioneer sort of plant. Something the neo-hippies would get into.”

“I suppose,” Ezzer said. “But like I said, keeping the ghost sang going takes some doing. It’s a higher maintenance sort of sang.”

Suddenly, Robin let go of the camera and rose up straight on her knees. If the old man harvested the roots with sticks, then why had he brought the shovel out with them? Vaguely sensing a threat, she swiveled her hips, brought one foot up under herself, and tried to stand.

The impact of the flat of the shovel blade on Robin’s temple knocked her down onto her side, into the pile of leaves. It smells like fall, she thought wildly through the pain. As if through a canyon, Robin heard the old man laughing. She tried to push herself up with one arm, but Ezzer brought the shovel down hard on her ankles. She screamed as she felt the bones shift and give way.

“I know!” Ezzer said. “Everybody’s so surprised when I do this to ‘em. I reckon I’m stronger than I look.”

Ezzer smacked the shovel into Robin’s torso like he was trying for a hole-in-one. The snapping of ribs was audible. Robin gasped for breath, her hands scrabbling against the ground. She barely felt it when one of her fingernails split.

“Can’t just water the ghost sang,” Ezzer said. “Oh, no. It’s special. It eats.”

Ezzer raised the shovel high above his head and slammed it down edgewise into Robin’s neck. A small splash of blood flew through the air and landed on the ground. There was a small rustle through the detritus, like a baby bird kicked out of the nest. Ezzer watched as the vines of the ghost sang slithered toward the blood, toward the stranger from the city. A tendril rose and dipped itself into the red stuff, like a fountain pen into an inkwell. Then the ground erupted in a flurry of green and brown as the ghost sang blindly wrapped itself around Robin. Ropes of fibrous plant matter tugged and pulled at her. Ezzer thought he could hear the sang whispering, making tiny noises as it began to tear the woman apart. Bones popped as joints separated. Skin was yanked taut like an overfilled balloon.

Ezzer hated this part. He didn’t mind the killing, especially uppity city girls like that photographer, but he couldn’t stand to watch the ghost sang take its food. He turned his head away, eyes shut tight. All he could do was listen as clothing ripped, bones imploded, and internal organs squished. He smelled the bright copper tang of fresh blood, shit and piss mixing in with shifting soil. Ezzer reckoned it took about half an hour before the whole thing was over and done with. Only then did he turn around.

The city girl was gone. Nobody would ever suspect she was there. By now, Buddy had taken care of Robin’s car and her phone. It was easier to burn a vehicle than one would think. When the flames died out, Buddy and a couple boys from town would push it up to the railroad tracks, where it would sit forever, a monument to the way things used to be. There was nothing left to do but wait a few years for harvest, for new visitors.

Camouflaged in the leaves, only Ezzer could see what was left of Robin: one hand, mostly buried, barely visible at ground level. A couple of her fingers stuck up through the top of the sang patch. In its palm was a plant, a new sprout of the ghost sang, its young green leaflets still unfurling in the fading sun.

Jeffery X Martin lives in Knoxville, TN, with his wife, Hannah. He is the managing editor of pop culture website, Biff Bam Pop! and host of Songs in the Key of X, the tiniest radio show on the internet. A folk horror writer, Martin’s latest novel, ‘The Flock,’ was released in April 2019 and is available through Amazon. In his spare time, he enjoys watching professional wrestling, Italian horror movies, and espousing the glories of terrible music from the 1970s.

Facebook:Facebook.com/jeff.x.martin

Amazon: Amazon.com/author/jefferyxmartin

BLOOD IS ALWAYS THICKER

A small bead of sweat slid from Johnny’s brow, down between his eyes. He fought wiping it as best he could, though it was driving him near insane. Stealth was the name of the game, though, and you only move if you have tor else risk being seen. That had always been the rule.

He looked over to his friend, who was sitting against a large maple tree, eyeing the canopy. The limbs in the tree next them shook.

“Psst,” Johnny whispered quietly, trying to get Drew’s attention. They locked eyes, and Johnny nodded toward the treetop.

Drew nodded back. He waited patiently for the limb with the largest amount of leaves on it to shake, that way, his movements would remain hidden from view. When the shaking stopped, he slowly raised his shotgun to his shoulder. He cocked the hammer back, and a small click seemed to echo throughout the forest.

For a moment, the worst possible thing they could think of went through their minds – the thought that they’d been detected. Breath held, they waited for what seemed like hours, the anticipation of failure growing to gargantuan levels. This couldn’t happen. They’d waited all Winter and Spring for this exact moment each and every year, preparing for it like Olympians training for gold medals.

Drew’s eyes shot a look to Johnny, and he watched as another bead of sweat crept down his face. Johnny shook his head slowly and nodded to the canopy again. Suddenly, the shaking resumed.

As if breathing from the same lung, each of the boys let out a sigh of relief, careful to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Their eyes back on the movement, Drew raised the gun, sights on the center of the commotion, and gently squeezed the trigger.

A loud explosion erupted from the barrel. Leaves floated gently to the ground, along with a handful of walnuts, and the still body of a gray squirrel.

“Good job,” Johnny said, finally reaching up to wipe his head. “First squirrel of the year, you son-of-a-bitch.”

“’Elp. You owe me a drink for that one. That was the deal, remember?”

His brow raised, Johnny snorted. “Yeah, that was the deal. But hell, if it wasn’t for me, you’d have never seen the damn thing.”

“Oh, bullshit. I would’ve. You saw how much racket it was makin’. You’re just mad you couldn’t get a shot at it first. Go on and admit it, buddy. Third year in a row I got
the first one. Guess I’m just a better hunter than you.”

“Mhm. Keep dreamin’.”

“You’ll see. You know it’s true. I bet I’ll get two more today before you even get one.”

“I don’t know about that.” Johnny looked around, the air was still and thick with humidity, the heat enough to induce the feeling of melting. “What time is it, anyway? Sun’s gotta be goin’ down pretty soon.”

Drew pulled his sleeve back and checked his watch. “It’s ‘bout seven thirty. Got another hour and a half or so, I reckon.” He laughed. “That is, if you wanna stay out here and watch me get a few more. Get it…watch me. Ha!” Johnny rolled his eyes.

“I’ll tell ya what. How ‘bout you tree ‘em for me, and I’ll shoot ‘em. You can be my squirrel dog! Why, I’ll even let you retrieve ‘em. Go on, boy. Git!”

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Johnny replied, unamused. He stood up and stretched his arms. “I don’t know ‘bout you, but I can’t stand to sit here anymore. I’m ‘bout to sweat away. I can barely breathe in this damn heat.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Drew walked over to claim his kill and looked up at the sun. “I hear you though. Be honest, we’re lucky we got this one. Little bastards got more sense than us, I reckon. Probably sittin’ in their nests right now with the air conditionin’ runnin’.”

“I hear that.”

“We need to find someplace a little cooler. Maybe we’d have more luck up one of the gas-well roads next to the creek. It’s a little cooler down there, and they got water. Wanna try that?

Johnny cocked his head, his eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Hmmm. That’s not a bad idea. But you know where we could go?”

“Where?” Drew inquired, as he stuffed the small animal carcass into his bag.

Johnny smiled mischievously, almost as if he were getting ready to tell some kind of dirty, old man joke to a three-year-old. “Someplace I guarantee ain’t nobody hunted, or probably even set foot, in a long time.”

“Johnny, this heat’s gettin’ to you. These hills are hunted to death, especially openin’ weekend.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why a place like where I’m thinkin’ has some real potential.”

Drew was still for a moment as he contemplated what was on his friend’s mind. They’d both hunted the same hills, side by side no less, for nearly twenty years straight. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of anywhere that would be void of people.

“Okay,” he said, half joking.  “Sure. If you know some secret place where ain’t nobody been in a while, I’ll go along. Hell, I’ll do ya one better than that. If such a place does exist, I’ll let you have the first shot. Ain’t like you’d hit anything.”

Johnny glanced toward a low spot in the hill. “Over there.”

“Gun rack? I knew you’d done gone crazy. That’s the first place everybody goes.”

“Nope. I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout Gun rack. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the next holler over.”

Drew paused, his brow furrowed, a concerned look covered his face. “Wait a minute. The next holler over is–”

“Yep,” Johnny interrupted. “When’s the last time you heard anybody say they went up in the head of Stepp Branch?”

Drew’s eyes grew large, his mouth opened wide. “Never. And for good reason.”

Johnny chuckled nervously. “You don’t believe all them tales, do you? I mean, you don’t believe they’s actually a witch up in there? I did when I was little, but come on, man.”

“I don’t know what I believe. I don’t’ like it, though. Only place I’ve ever been near where the damn hair stood up on the back of my neck. It’s creepy. Fuckin’ forest grows thick down in there, too.”

“You ever been?”

“Nope. Never down in there. I know what people say, though. And not just the crazy ones, neither. Everybody says it. That ol’ Jenkins woman was strange.” “So are you!” Johnny joked.

“Nah, man. I’m goofy. That old woman was strange. Like, real evil kinda weird. They say she talked to things that weren’t there and shit. Said she even talked to Satan himself.”

“Yeah. I remember the stories. My grandpa told me once that she had a collection of teeth from little kids or somethin’. Said she liked to use them to make some kinda fucked up soup. Used to creep me out good. I remember because I asked him if she was the tooth fairy.” He laughed quietly. “He just said I was stupid.”

“You know, your grandpa always was a smart man. Can’t say disagree with him on that.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ve heard noises comin’ from out there, too. Weird noises…like babies cryin’ and kids playin’.”

“See, maybe she is the tooth fairy. Maybe if we go in there, we’ll find a bunch of treasure and we can be rich.”

“That don’t make no sense. Why would there be treasure? Besides, like I said, I ain’t never been down in there, but Dad took me huntin’ one winter up to that old mine pond on the other side of the hill. Coldest winter I can remember. Snowed somethin’ fierce. I heard a bunch of weird things comin’ from up that way. Dad acted like he didn’t hear it. Said it was the wind and the snow makin’ me hear things, but he was all funny and stuff for a day or two after. He wouldn’t talk about it or nothin’. I remember he acted all weird toward Mom, too. I heard ‘em screamin’ a lot after that. Only time I ever saw him hit her.”

Johnny stood quietly, unsure of what to say. “Damn, man. I didn’t think your dad was like that. You think it had anything to do with, well…you know?”

“That’s what Grandpa told me. He said Dad would’ve never run off for any other reason. Said somethin’ bout how them noises were that ol’ Jenkins witch gettin’ in his head. It sure was one of the creepiest goddamn things I ever heard.”

Johnny stared off into the distance and wiped his face again. “That was a long time ago, though.”

“Yeah, it was. I don’t blame him no more for runnin’ off. I did then, but I was just a little kid.”

“Surely, she’d be dead and gone by now, though. If it was her, and if she was a witch. She was old then, right? I mean, she’d have to be dead by now. Ain’t nobody lives that long.”

“Maybe,” Drew replied, unconvinced. “But what if she ain’t? Like I said…you know the stories.”

“She has to be. Let’s just pop over the hill and down into the creek for about fifteen or twenty minutes. If we don’t see
anything, we head on out.”

Drew glanced up. “I don’t know.”

“You gotta give me a chance to get that drink back, anyway. We can do double or nothin’. Whoever leaves with the most squirrels is the winner. Fuck that first squirrel shit.”

“Ha! So, whoever loses has to buy two drinks, now?”

“Sure.”

Drew looked to him, eyebrow raised. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Not ‘till I win,” Johnny said with a snicker. “I wouldn’t be so generous if we wasn’t best friends.”

§

“Look at this fuckin’ place,” Johnny said, trying not to fall into the valley. “This is why nobody ever goes down in here. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with no goddamn witch.”

“Yeah,” Drew added, feet turned sideways as he crouched down to one knee. “It’s a fuckin’ death trap.”

Johnny dug his feet in, planting the stock of his gun into the soil for support. He shifted slowly, trying to scoot a bit further down the slope without losing control. He pushed hard with his legs, trying to anchor his feet, but he’d already started moving. He sat down, hoping the extra contact point would give him the needed grip to steady, but the earth gave way beneath him.

He looked back to Drew as he slid down the hill. “Shit, I’m gone, brother!” he yelled, rolling over saplings and smaller vegetation as he went.

Drew watched as his friend toppled head over ass down the steep slope, his weight forcing him through vines and shrubs as if he were a bowling ball moving through a set of pins.

“Johnny!” he called, helplessly. “Johnny!” Suddenly, Drew felt his own feet begin to slide. “No, no,” he said in protest, planting firmly into the dirt. “It ain’t happenin’. I ain’t goin’ out like–” At that exact moment, the earth gave way again, and he followed his friend deep into the valley.

§

Drew felt coldness cover his skin, an odd feeling considering the mid-August heat they’d just experienced. He cracked his eyes, but all he could see was a murky blur. He began to panic, the adrenaline coursing through his body helping to counteract the grogginess. He could feel the iciness still, only now it was accompanied by a strange pressure all over his body. He drew a deep breath, and the frigid air entered his lungs with a pain like he’d never felt.

Just when he was about to give up, something grabbed his wrist and started to pull. Like a child exiting the womb, the murkiness and blurriness in his vision started to clear as he realized what was happening.

“Drew! You okay, man?” Johnny shouted, dragging his friend from the bottom of a partially frozen stream. “Jesus, you had me scared to death!” He drug him up and onto the bank, laying him over on his side.

“What happened?” Drew said, coughing.

“We fell,” Johnny said, chuckling. “Lucky you landed in this weird ass frozen stream.”

“Frozen?” Drew replied. “It’s fuckin’ ninety degrees outside!”

“Yeah. Not down’ here it ain’t.”

A hard gust of wind blew from deep within the forest that carried with it the arctic chill the two were now feeling.

“Goddamn! Where is that comin’ from?” Drew rubbed his arms to try and generate heat. “It’s the middle of fuckin’ August!” He shivered, then looked up to Johnny, who was rubbing his own arms. “We ain’t prepared for this shit, that’s for sure.”

“Somethin’ ain’t right,” Johnny said, pointing his finger to the sky. “Look at that.”

“Is that… snow?”

It started with one flake, gradually increasing until the air was filled with small snow crystals, each one larger and heavier than the last that fell.

“There’s no way that’s snow.” Johnny bent over and watched as it accumulated on the ground in front of them. He ran his finger over it, pulling a small amount up to his mouth. He looked around, scanning the forest. Somehow, night had managed to engulf them in a matter of minutes. “What the fuck is goin’ on? How long we been down here?”

Drew checked his watch again. “Well, says it’s just now seven thirty, so that’s about–”

“Not long enough is what that’s about. Ain’t no fuckin’ way. I mean, the canopy is thick, and I know that’ll make it dark, but it’s gettin’ dark dark. Like the sun’s goin’ down already.Like it’s winter again.”

“I t-told you this place is f-f-fucking weird,” Drew said, shivering.

Johnny looked to him and noticed that ice crystals had already formed in the wet fabric of his clothes. “You’re fuckin’ freezing. Like, literally freezing!”

Drew’s shivers started to turn into shakes, violent bursts of uncontrollable tremors.

Johnny walked over and huddled against him. He knew from the look on his face, along with the rapid onset of what was somehow winter in August, that they needed to get out of there. He knew that Drew wouldn’t last long, especially when he was already soaked.

He looked to the hill. That path was out of the question. It was as close to vertical as it could be. If they couldn’t manage to slide down with any semblance of control, there was no way in hell they could get enough grip to climb it. He looked across the stream to the other slope, but it was just as bad. He looked up the stream and down but saw the same thing in both directions – snow.

He started to panic. Night had taken full hold in the valley, nothing but darkness and heavy snow falling all around.

“Fuck man. I guess we gonna have to walk the creek o–”

“Th-th-there,” Drew interrupted, his arm taking a break from rubbing his shivering body to point. “Is that a l-l-light?”

The combination of darkness and the sudden onslaught of winter made it hard for him to see, but in the distance, a dull glow radiated, reflecting from the freshly fallen snow. “What’s goin’ on out here?” Johnny said. “I didn’t think anybody lived up here.” He looked to Drew again. “Fuck it,” he said, grabbing his friend’s arm. “Let’s go see if they’ll let us warm.”

§

They approached the small cabin with caution. There were several reasons for this. First, they’d both lived in the hills of eastern Kentucky their entire lives, and for what it was worth, they had both been sure that Stepp Branch was empty. Second, and also a product of living in the hills of eastern Kentucky their entire lives, they were unsure of what the owner may do to an unexpected visitor. Especially at night, and especially way out in the middle of nowhere in a place where nobody was supposed to live in the first place.

Signs of rot crept around each window sill, and the roof of the porch was slanted sharply. With Drew’s arm over his neck for support, Johnny helped him up onto the porch, huddled against his friend, and knocked on the door.

“Hello,” Johnny yelled. “I-is anyone home? We need help! Please?” He looked to Drew whose eyes were closed now, and his skin had taken on a light shade of blue. “My friend, he’s not doing so well. We need to get warm, fast. H-he fell in the creek. He’s freezing to death! Please?”

He hobbled over to the window and placed his free hand against the glass, wiping it with his sleeve. As he peered inside for movement, he saw a fire roaring in the fireplace, the source of the light they’d seen earlier as it reflected off of the snow. He glanced at Drew again, ice forming on his face, crystalizing over the course hair of his mustache.

He looked around, the stillness of the unnatural wintery August night they’d fallen into as if it were another dimension trapped within the valley, adding an extra sense of fear to his already unsettled state of mind. “Fuck it. I’m not gonna let you die out here. Whoever owns this place will have to understand. They’ll have to.”

Drew’s eyes shifted slowly as he tried to look at Johnny, his level of seriousness and sympathy apparent. “Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll get you warm.” He reached over and jiggled the doorknob. To his surprise, there was no resistance. The knob turned easily and the door opened with a creak.

As he stepped toward the lighted room, a rush of warmth from the fire engulfed them, forcing goosebumps from their chilled skin. “Hello,” Johnny called. “We need help, here! Is anybody home?”

Silence filled the room, except for the popping sounds coming from the burning wood. The cabin was full of old, dusty furniture, and the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust and debris as if it hadn’t been swept, or even walked on, in years. Johnny felt an emptiness in his stomach begin to swirl, an uneasiness that quickly wrapped around his organs. It didn’t feel right to him, but he knew there was nothing else to do.

He helped Drew inside and closed the door behind them.

§

Drew lay on the floor in front of the fireplace as Johnny looked around the cabin. The idea was simple – they would rest for just long enough to get warm and thaw Drew, get a plan together, then get out of there before the owners returned. Unless the owners came back before that time, in which case, maybe they’d be allowed to stay the night and find a way out in the morning. Otherwise, they’d hope for the best.

It was a typical cabin, Johnny thought, just a bit dirty. He picked up a picture from a shelf and blew on it, sending a cloud of dust into the air, forcing a cough. “Damn,” he said with a chuckle. He wiped at the frame’s glass, trying to clear it enough to make out what the picture was, but the grime seemed to have settled over the years forming an almost impenetrable, greasy coat.

“Jesus. Who let’s their place get to be this big of a mess?” He looked back to Drew, who was shivering now. A sign he was getting warmer. “You just keep gettin’ warm, man. We ain’t in no hurry.” He looked back to the picture in his hand and noticed a vague outline. “At least not right yet, we ain’t.” He put the picture back on the shelf and picked up another, trying the same thing. “I’ll say this, though.” He blew on the frame and another cloud of dust shot into the air. “This place is fuckin’ weird. Must be some kinda old huntin’ cabin or somethin’.” He wiped at the glass, this time clearing a small space.

He squinted his eyes together and focused on the picture. It was an old black and white print, the definition grainy and unclear. “Huh, this is different. Looks like a bunch of women standin’ ‘round a fire or somethin’.” He looked over at Drew again. “They all dressed in rags, though. Fucked up. One of ‘em looks like they’re holdin’ a football or somethin’.” He shrugged his shoulders and put the picture down. “Whatever floats your boat, I reckon.”

He made his way over to a door on the other side of the room and tried to open it. “Hmm. Wonder what’s in here?”

“H-h-hard to t-tell, man.”

He turned around to see Drew sitting up, scooted closer to the fire. “That’s better! Looks like you’re gonna live after all, huh?”

“I d-don’t know. I’m still cold as hell.”

“Yeah. I’d say.” Johnny’s attention focused back on the locked door. “Wonder why the front door wasn’t locked, but this one is? Seems kinda strange.” He tried again, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“Maybe you should just leave it be, Johnny. Might be somethin’ you don’t wanna see.”

He lifted his hand from the knob, ready to walk away, when a noise came from the other side.

“Wait…wh-what the fuck is that? You hear it?” He leaned in closer and placed his ear against the door. “Ththey’s somethin’ in there.”

Drew stood, finally warm enough to function, and made his way over. “Hell, man. It might be the owners. They might think we’re here to rob ‘em or somethin’.”

“Hello? We don’t mean any harm. We got lost down in here somehow and my buddy fell in the creek. We just needed a place to get warm.”

The noise grew louder. A series of high-pitched calls and what sounded like chuckles came from the other side. Drew and Johnny stared at each other for a moment before a hard, crashing thud vibrated the floor beneath them.

“What the fuck is that?”

“You don’t reckon it’s… well, you know,” Drew said in a whisper, as if whoever or whatever was on the other side could hear him.

Johnny looked at him, confused. “Huh?”

“You know. What if it’s somebody bein’ held here against their will? Like a kidnappin’ or somethin’.”

Johnny’s eyes widened as he thought about it. Drew had a point. If there ever was a place to use as a hideout for kidnapping victims, it would be here, especially when it was supposed to be void of human life.

“Shit. I never thought about that.” He looked around the room, his gaze finally coming to rest on the door. “Well, I guess, if that’s what’s happenin’, then we should help ‘em.

Right?”

“I guess so.”

“Hello?” Johnny called once more. “A-are you okay? Are you bein’ held prisoner?”

The noise came again, louder than ever. This time though, the sound was clear. Johnny gasped, his hand found his mouth and rested over his lips. He could feel his heart begin to accelerate to a pace he wasn’t sure his body could withstand. “That sounds like somebody laughing.”

“Yeah… it does, don’t it?” Drew listened intently, his hand next to his ear and cupped against the door. His breathing had quickened and he had to consciously hold it so that he could hear. “It actually sounds like… kids laughing.”

Johnny’s mind began to race. Thoughts of children being held in a small room for ransom, or God only knows what else, crowded his head. He looked to Drew and, as if their minds were working in sync, they nodded to each other. Drew turned and began looking for something to pry the lock from the door while Johnny continued to try to communicate with the voices on the other side.

“Are you okay? We’re gonna help you, just stay calm. Everything’s gonna be alright, I promise.” He tried the knob again out of instinct, but it wouldn’t turn. He put several feet between himself and the door before rushing forward, ramming his shoulder into it with all his might. But it was no use. The door remained sturdy.

“Hurry, Drew. We gotta get ‘em outta here before the owner comes–” As he turned to face his friend, he quickly realized that they were no longer alone. His jaw fell open, his tongue taking on the feeling of cotton.

“Wh-who the fuck is that?”

Drew was on his knees in the middle of the room. His hands draped to his sides, his body arched backward in the shape of a semi-circle. In front of him stood a figure, small in stature and draped in black rags that hung to the floor.

Johnny stood motionless, frozen with shock and confusion. He tried to speak, but fear had made his tongue tighten. It had squeezed his vocal chords like a pair of pliers, submitting him to silence.

Slowly, the figure raised its arm to point at Drew, extending an irregularly long, bony finger that wasn’t quite human. In a drawn out hiss that raked against Johnny’s eardrums like the sharp point of a needle, the figure spoke.

“I remember you, boy. Do you remember me?”

As if being peeled from his skin one long strip at a time, Drew screamed in agony. “Mom! No, Mommy! Please, don’t go!”

The figure began to laugh, a high-pitched cackle that echoed like an explosion through the small confines. With one flick of the neck, the cloth covering the face and head fell away to reveal a small, elderly woman. Wrinkles covered her face like deep, mountain valleys, and long, gray hairs lay in patches against her mostly bald head. Like a conductor instructing an orchestra, her hand began to move up and down, back and forth, drawing an imaginary picture in the air.

Johnny struggled to move, to free himself from fear’s horrendous grip, finally able to budge his foot in front of him. “Wh-who are you!” he managed, taking another step toward them. “What are you doing to him?”

Her gaze shifted toward him, her free arm extended in front of her, palm facing out. “Silent,” she hissed. “You have your purpose here, too.”

Johnny’s legs froze in place, like his joints had suddenly filled with concrete, immobile and heavy. He tried to lift his foot again, but it remained on the ground as if it had been nailed in place. “N-no! Who are you? What are you doing?”

“I said, quiet!” In one abrupt motion, she clenched her first closed.

Against his will, Johnny’s mouth slammed shut. He grunted and moaned, but his lips remained tight. He couldn’t fight it. His muscles were no longer his to control, and his joints were locked stiff.

“Now,” the woman said, turning back to Drew, who was still splayed out in the middle of the floor crying. “Do you know me, boy?”

Drew looked directly into her eyes and smiled a weak, saddening smile. “M-mommy,” he whined, like a child who’d just had a toy stolen from them. “Y-you’re my mommy.”

She smiled and looked to Johnny, then to the locked door. “Your father kept you a secret from me, but I found out about you years ago. I guess he was just too weak to deal with his mistakes.” She made a motion at the door. “And trust me, he made a lot of mistakes. Fortunately for me, they all are of some use… except you.”

Laughter came from the other side of the locked door, and Johnny threw his attention to what was happening on the other side. He watched in horror as the doorknob began to turn and the door opened slightly, revealing a dark crack into what he could only imagine was some fucked up form of hillbilly hell.

The door opened more, and like a shy animal pushing its way into the world, a disfigured hand gripped its edge, followed by another. The laughter grew loud, drowning out all other sounds in the room. One by one, Hands turned into arms, arms into bodies, until finally, the first of five made itself fully visible.

In the doorway stood a horribly disfigured thing. Standing at only waist height, it had the figure of a human, but its skin was scaly and reptilian in appearance. Its head was covered in sparse patches of badly matted hair like the woman’s, and its eyes narrow and cat-like. With every breath it took, a raspy gurgle made its way up from the pit of its distended stomach.

The woman walked over to Drew, looked down at him, and smiled. “Say hello to your bastard brothers. The one’s your father couldn’t stand to look at!”

Johnny fought with every fiber of his being to free himself, cry out to his friend, but the woman’s control over him was too strong.

The woman glanced at him and grinned, then looked back to Drew. “Your… friend over there. He isn’t family, is he?”

Drew continued to cry, a broken faucet buried in each of his eyes.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I’ve lived here for hundreds of years. I know who’s kin.” She bent over and took Drew’s chin in her hand, turned it toward the creatures standing in the doorway. “This is what family looks like. Do you understand?” She motioned to the first creature to come to her, and when it did, she reached her finger out and pierced its skin with her fingernail. A small drop of blood leaked out onto the tip of her finger. “This, is what you protect.” Holding his mouth with one hand, she gently placed the droplet onto his tongue.

Drew began to convulse, thrashing around the room like a wild, rabid animal. With each jerk, his body flung into the walls and furniture, eventually coming to rest at Johnny’s feet. He raised to his feet and opened his eyes, looking up at his friend, helpless and afraid.

“Don’t be scared of them,” the woman said to Johnny, gesturing to the creatures. “They won’t hurt you. They’ll get more pleasure out of using your teeth and bones as toys than out of eating you.” She walked over to Drew and placed a hand on his shoulder. “He, on the other hand, needs to eat. He needs to keep his strength, you understand?” She helped Drew to his feet, placed her hand against his cheek. “I won’t live much longer, you see? And I need you to keep this bloodline alive. You have to protect family, boy. Family is more important than anything.” She looked over to Johnny and grinned. “And he can destroy us.”

Drew looked to Johnny, a wicked look of corrupted acceptance taking over. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “I understand.”

“Good,” she replied. “I thought you would. After all, blood is thicker than, well… you know the rest.”

Tony Evans is a crafter of horror and dark fiction, father, and wildlife biologist. He is originally from the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky and his writing tends to reflect the culture and folk-tales from the area. He currently lives in Bardstown, Kentucky where he spends his time with his wife and two young daughters - his favorite little monsters. Tony’s work has appeared in a variety of horror anthologies, as well as several print and online magazines. His debut short story collection – BETTER YOU BELIEVE – is available on Amazon and from Deadman’s Tome.

Follow him on twitter/Instagram: @tonyevanshorror

THE TOWN OF AFURISIT

CHARITY LANGLEY

“I expect your final drafts by next Friday. Late papers will not be accepted. Does everybody understand this?”

Many of my classmates murmured in agreement as I wrote the due date in my planner. I needed at least an 87 on this paper just to pass. This was, hands down, the toughest history class I’d ever taken.

Sighing, I capped my pen and shoved stuff into my backpack. I picked up my pace when the crowd started to head for the door. Professor Connor had taken a special interest in me this year. Probably because I was his worst student.

My hand was on the door frame. I was almost out of the room when he spoke. “Miss Price, may I see you for a moment.”

All sixty-something of my classmates turned to stare. My face grew hot. I turned and made my way slowly to his lectern.

Leaning forward, he clasped his hands and looked at
me over the top of his glasses. “Appalachian Culture is a wonderful paper subject. I’m glad you drew that one. I don’t need to remind you how important this grade is for you Miss Price, do I?”

“Yes, sir– I– I mean, no, sir. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Good!” he said, turning to take a small piece of paper off his desk. “Every year, I pick the most deserving student for a special gift.”

I gently took the piece of paper from his sunspotted hand.

It was a voucher for a room at an inn.

Was he propositioning me? Did he expect me to sleep with him to get a good grade?

I looked back up to his face. He smiled, his gray mustache widening. “There are a few hotels, and inns, that donate rooms to students. They get a copy of your paper in return for your room and board. Most places use them on websites as a way to draw in tourists. This place,” he said, pointing to the voucher, “is a great, little place run by a nice widow.”

“But I just can’t– “

“You can, and you will,” he said, his bushy eyebrows knitting for a brief moment. “She usually expects her guests between four and six, but I called ahead. She’s going to wait up for you.”

I blinked at him. “Wait a minute,” I said, shaking my head. “You mean, I’m supposed to get there today?”

He tugged his sleeve up and checked his watch. “Yep. It’s only for one night. Checkout is tomorrow at four. Mrs Woolford, the owner, is a wonderful woman. She can tell you about all the local haunts when you arrive.”

He smiled, turned away and started talking to other students. I looked down at the little handwritten scrap of paper. Looked like I was headed to a place called “Afurisit”.

§

I stopped by my dorm and grabbed a few things before heading out. I tried to look up the town on the internet, but came up empty. I had doubts the town existed. Luckily, the address to the inn did match a location in my GPS.

I left at five-thirty. My trip showed two hours. Traffic appeared okay leaving the city, but the radio weather man joked that late afternoon thunderstorms might change that.

The threat of bad weather almost made me turn around, but I’d probably fail Dr. Connor’s class. I couldn’t afford another failure, so I trudged on. Even though the early fall days had been pretty mild, I felt a chill as I exited onto the interstate.

My drive turned out to be a little longer than I’d expected. Rain, roadwork, slow traffic, and a few detours added nearly an hour to my trip.

Squinting at the next street sign, I turned onto a dirt road. Brilliant orange glowed through silhouetted pines. I’d passed through a few brief showers, but bouncing over the dry Georgia clay made it clear that it hadn’t rained here.

I slowed after I hit a pothole that sent the top of my head into the roof of the car. The trees grew denser. The edges of day faded into hues of purple. After a while, the road devolved into nothing more than two sharp tracks cutting through tall weeds and dandelions.

The dips along the drive were so deep that I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. GPS showed I was going the right way, but my map didn’t show a road. It looked as though I were driving across a lake.

Around the next turn, I lost my navigation connection. Great. Stuck somewhere where there wasn’t a real road, in the dark.

A pair of eyes caught my attention.

I stomped the brakes. The car skidded to a halt, throwing a peach cloud of dust in the light of my high beams.

Two deer, one large and one small, stared at me before bounding into the thick brush to my left. A mother and her baby, I guessed.

Once my nerves settled, I picked up my phone and tried to load a satellite view. I really needed to see where I was.

No connection.

Zooming in and out, it still looked like I was going the right direction, but for all I knew, I was winding down someone’s private driveway.

My tail lights illuminated just as much of the overgrown path as my headlights. Nowhere to turn around either. I’d already driven what felt like miles, if I couldn’t turn around, how would I get back?

A voice shouted through my closed window, “Where ye headin’?”

I dropped my phone in the floor.

“Hey in thar,” a man said, rapping on my window. “I say, where’s ya headin’?”

I sucked in a sharp breath and gripped the steering wheel. “I, uh, I’m looking for the Flora Belle Inn.”

“Ah!” The man belly laughed. His gums pulled back over his uneven teeth. “You’s lookin’ for Miss Beulah’s place, ain’t ye?”

I picked up the voucher from the passenger seat. I kept the man in the corner of my vision as I held the paper up to the dim light of my phone.

“I think the owner’s name is Bee-you-la Wool-ford?”

The man pushed his worn baseball cap back and scratched the balding crown of his long frizzy mane.

“I ain’t know nuthin’ ‘bout all that, but I do know that Miss Be-eww-la Wolf-ard lives up thar. She’s just ‘round the bend.”

I ran the name, the way he said it, over in my head and studied the voucher.

“I’m sure it’s her place,” I said, smiling. “I think I’m lost though.”

“No yer ain’t.” He spit out a wad of tobacco. “If yer stay on this road, then ye turn at the wall, you’ll see’er drive. Yer ain’t got far at’awl.”

When I put the car in gear and started to drive away, my tires spun and lurched over the next little hill. In my taillights’ red haze, the man waved and rested a shotgun on his shoulder.

§

I drove even slower than before. I certainly didn’t want to hit any deer, or any random people wandering out here in the dark. The road seemed never-ending.

Just when I thought I’d missed a turn, I nearly sent the car skidding into an old stone wall. The structure resembled something I’d seen in old parks. It looked more fitting for a cemetery than an inn.

A glint of a green in the corner of my eye caught my attention. If not for that street sign, I wouldn’t have believed that this was even a road.

It wasn’t long before I saw an opening in the wall. At first I just thought the rocks had crumbled, until I noticed the fresh white gravel. A patter of gunshots sounded in the distance as I turned up the steep drive.

My headlights washed over the porch first. It appeared to be beige, but the paint had been layered on thick, and was peeling and chipping in places.

The only light was from the glow of a barn-mounted lamp, just past the porch. The old wooden building had no doors, just two open pits of blackness. The bluish light didn’t reach inside the structure more than a foot.

There were no other cars here. Was this the inn, or had I accidentally come upon someone’s home?

Another spray of gunshots echoed, reminding me that people loved their guns up here. They would shoot first, then ask questions. If I was at the wrong home, they could murder me and claim self-defense, stand your ground, or whatever other law allowed people to murder each other up here.

“Hey, you in there!” a voice shouted. “You’s Summer Price?”

The little woman smiled, but her gray head full of curlers and shadowed face looked garish in the moonlight.

“That’s me,” I said, cracking my window to hear her better.

“Well, alrighty then. Come on inside and I’ll getcha all set.”

Before I could reply, the woman pulled her pink knitted shawl tight around her flannel nightgown, and started shuffling toward the porch.

“Oh, uh wait,” I said, unfastening my seat belt and leaning out the window. “Where should I park?”

The old woman cackled, laughing so hard her bottom dentures slid out of place. “Ye can park anywhere ye like. Yer’s got run o’ the place. Only thang with a motor I gots is an old tractor, right yonder in the shed.”

I parked, grabbed my duffel bag from the back seat, and jogged to catch up to her.

“I hope yer didn’t have no trouble findin’ the place,” she said, carefully taking the wide porch steps one at a time.

“I was going the right way,” I replied, following her up the stairs. “But when my GPS went offline, I thought I was lost.”

“A course yer did,” she said laughing. “You’s in Afurisit.”

She was laughing harder, but my blank stare must’ve made it clear that I didn’t get the joke.

“Aw,” she said, patting my arm. “I forget yer ain’t from

‘round here.”

I smiled and let out a breath, glad I hadn’t offended her.

“The story we’s all told o’ how the town got it’s name, Afurisit. This town’s hard ter find, so the joke is even though yer done passed it, yer still askin’ ‘How far is it?’ So after awhile, people’s started callin’ it by that name an’ it stuck. ‘A fur is it?’ Didja have to stop and ask?”

“No,” I replied, “But a man saw I was lost and gave me directions.”

The woman gave a little grunt in agreement. “Probably Randy, or one o’ his brothers,” she said with a shaky wave of her hand. They’s always out there lookin’ for deer or some other thing to hunt.”

She pulled the screen door and held it open for me. I jumped when the wood smacked against the door frame.

“You’s this way,” she said, pointing a knobby finger.

A loud grandfather clock chimed. I turned the corner and gasped when I nearly ran into a large taxidermied bear.

The little woman stopped abruptly. “You done et?”

I smiled at the woman, not understanding what she said. When she repeated it, I realized it was a question.

“I’m sorry, can you say that again?”

“Supper,” she said, a bit irritated. “Ye done et already?”

“Oh,” I said. “No, I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Well, it is a bit late, but they’s some leftover biscuits in the oven. If you’s thirsty, they’s sweet tea, water, and sweet milk in the fridge.” She led me to an upstairs room, pushed open the door, and patted me on the shoulder. “I put ye up in here,” she said. “Bathroom is straight down at the end of the hall.”

I had a million more questions to ask her, but when I looked back, she was already starting down the stairs. I couldn’t bring myself to bother the old woman any further.

I pulled my bag up next to the bed and sat down. I knew I’d get no sleep tonight.

I could blame it on the trip, or being in an unfamiliar place, but, most likely, it was the hundreds of glass doll eyes that stared at me from every direction.

§

As expected, I didn’t get any sleep. The world was incredibly silent out here. The only sounds were of the wind rustling through leaves, and the old grandfather clock that chimed every hour. I didn’t dare leave the room until I knew that Mrs. Woolford was awake.

The television came on first. Some very loud church program. I wondered if she always listened to it that loud, or if it was a passive aggressive way to wake up her guests.

I set my things neatly by the bed, pulled my hair up into a ponytail, and headed downstairs. Mrs Woolford was hunched over the stove, stirring a pot in her curlers and robe.

“Glad you’s awake,” she said, smiling at me. “Biscuits and gravy be done in a minute.”

“Oh,” I replied, “You didn’t have to cook. I’m sure I’d have been able to get something in town.”

The old woman cackled in what I guessed was her usual way of laughing. “There ain’t nuthin’ open on the Sabbath! Did they teach you nuthin’ in dem city schools. This the Lord’s day. We go to church and sang and pray today.” She looked me up and down. “You best be gettin’ dressed if we’s gon’ make it on time to get a good seat.”

I looked helplessly around. “But, but it’s Saturday!”

“Oh, boo,” the little woman said, waving a potholder at me. “Them heathen places done warped yer mind. Everybody ‘round here knows the real Sabbath is on Saturday.”

“Oh, I, uh, I didn’t know about church.” I stared blankly at her. “I don’t have any church clothes.”

“What?” she said, “They not have church where you come from?”

“Uh, no, they have church, but I–”

“The Lord ain’t got no time for yer excuses. You best go an’ get on the best thing yer got. Maybe I’s got something to fit ye.”

I turned and went back upstairs. My brain screamed at
me the whole way.

I didn’t come here to go to church. I came here to pass a class. Not a single church prayer could help me, but I also couldn’t tell the little woman ‘no’, either.

I went upstairs and pulled out the nicest clothes I had. A black pair of slacks and a blue sweater. I slid my feet into a pair of comfortable flats and went back downstairs. Mrs Woolford was carrying a hot pot over to the table. She gasped when she saw me. For a brief moment I thought she was going to drop the pot.

“Oh no, no, NO!” she said making a sweeping motion at me with her brown and yellow potholder. “I said git on something ‘spectable for the Lord!”

“But this is the nicest thing I brought with me,” I said defensively. “I don’t know anyone here, I didn’t expect to be going to church.”

“Well, you know the Lord, ain’t yer?” she said, pushing me aside and shuffling to a back room.

I looked down at my clothes, surely they were good enough for church. It had been a while since I’d gone, had it really changed that much?

The little woman came back. She shoved an armload of plastic covered garments at me. “One o’ these got to fit ye. Go get dressed. An’ hurry up. We’s gon’ be late.”

I went back upstairs taking the plastic bags with me. I tossed them on the bed and carefully unzipped them. The first one looked like an old bridesmaid’s dress that probably hadn’t been worn since the late 70s. I made a face and shifted it aside. The next one contained what looked like a wedding gown. Where did this woman think we were going? The third package contained a long blue jean skirt. Since I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to a wedding, it would have to do.

The woman’s thin, shrill voice echoed up the stairs. “You awl ready, up there? We ain’t a gettin a good seat, but at least we’s still got time to git a seat.”

I cringed at myself in the mirror. The skirt was too big and uncomfortably itchy.

Why was I doing this?

I went down the stairs to find Mrs. Woolford a vision in sunshine yellow. Not a good vision, mind you, but a searyour-retinas shade of yellow that made her skin look sallow.

“Ah, now ‘ats much better,” she said, clasping her white gloved hands together. She reached out and took my arm, allowing me to escort her down the stairs to my car.

§

“In my day, women didn’t drive nowhere. Drivin’s a man’s job. Women got no place operatin’ such crude, dirty machines.”

I let the woman ramble the whole ride to church. She pointed out homes and businesses of various church members as we went through town. I’d wanted to put the address of the church in my GPS, but she’d have none of that. Instead, she yelled out directions as we drove. My GPS didn’t work much out here anyway.

I parked the car and watched the congregants going inside. Women and girls wore dresses and skirts. Men were in khaki cargo pants or slacks over work boots. There were also a fair amount of people in checkered flannel.

Everybody knew everybody… except me. Faces grew cold, smiles empty, when they fell on me.

Mrs Woolford pulled me up the steeply inclined parking lot. “This‘s Summer Price,” she said, introducing me to random people. “She’s a little gal from the city, and a guest in my inn, so you’s best be nice to her.”

The little woman pushed me to an empty pew, then motioned for me to sit on the end.

In the front of the church, white robed people marched out and started singing. Something about the Lord and mountains, but the voices weren’t all in unison. Some of the congregants were shouting ‘amens’, and ‘praise the Lords’, over the song. When the song finished, everybody took a seat. The pastor introduced Lindernia Lee Gunning, and handed her a microphone.

She was a beautiful woman. Long curls of golden blond framed her light face. She looked like one of Mrs Woolford’s porcelain dolls come to life.

Lindernia opened her mouth and started singing in the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard.

“‘He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower;

Alike they’re needful for the flower; And joys and tears alike are sent To give the soul fit nourishment:

As comes to me or cloud or sun,

Father, thy will, not mine, be done!’”

After Lindernia sang, the pastor said something. I didn’t hear what he said because I was still focused on the young woman with the golden voice.

People around me started moving to their feet. So I did the same.

Suddenly, Mrs Woolford grabbed my hand and yanked me up to the front where Lindernia Lee stood with the pastor, the only man in the church wearing a full suit.

“This here’s Summer Price,” she said, pushing me toward him. “Her teacher done sent her here fer her project, wan’it, dear?”

I nodded, shook the pastor’s hand, then stepped around him to Lindernia.

“You sing beautifully!” I said.

She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and did a little curtsy.

I was reaching to shake her hand when my arm was slapped away.

“I hate ter tell ya this,” a large, blonde woman said, “But she ain’t understand yer none. She’s dumb.”

“She isn’t dumb,” I said, horrified. How could someone speak so terribly of someone who could sing so beautifully.

“Not that kind o’ dumb. She’s teched.”

My mind blanked on the word ‘teched’. I’d never heard it before.

Mrs Woolford stepped up and patted my elbow. “Ida Mae means she can’t speak none. She’s dumb as a fence post. All she’an do is sang fer the Lord.”

I looked back at Lindernia. For someone labeled ‘dumb’, her facial expressions certainly looked like she could hear and understand just fine.

Lindernia took a breath, opened her mouth, and an unintelligible series of wailing escaped her lips.

“Now Lindernia,” Ida Mae said, grabbing her arm,

“don’t do that in front of yer guest!”

In response, Lindernia wailed again.

Ida Mae gripped her elbow and wrenched her arm. Lindernia immediately closed her mouth and her eyes went wide. “If you’ll be excusin’ us, I gotta talk to my little girl here.”

I watched them head toward the entrance of the church.

“You’s lucky she stopped you from tuchin’ Lindernia,” Mrs Woolford said as she started shuffling back to her pew. “That girl’s known ter bite. Billy Joe got a nasty infection from one o’ her bites last year. He lucky the Pastor was willin’ to pray over his injured hand to heal it.”

Wailing echoed down the church. Not a single one of the congregants even looked toward the sound.

Unable to help myself, I made my way toward the lobby and peeked around the corner.

“...now you listen to me!” Ida Mae said, poking her finger at Lindernia. “You is gonna go out there and sing and praise the Lord like any other good little girl out there!”

In response, Lindernia balled up her fists and banged her own forehead.

“Girl,” Ida Mae said, “You best be thinkin’ hard. You ain’ wanna cross me.”

Lindernia wailed in response. Her wailing became a violent screaming. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

Ida Mae laughed at her.

Tears rolled down Lindernia’s face.

Ida Mae laughed harder. The large, blonde woman was a disgusting caricature of a human. Her silver capped teeth glinted in her pale pink maw.

Lindernia shoved her own forearm in her mouth and bit down hard.

This action drew Ida Mae’s attention. The woman stopped laughing and backhanded Lindernia. “If you wanna act like an animal, then I’s gonna chain yer up in the doghouse again! ...Lest yer wanna sleep with the snakes out back.”

Lindernia dropped her arm, wiped her face, and took a few deep breaths. I could see the defined imprint of her teeth in her own flesh.

“Now ‘at’s a good girl,” Ida Mae said as she straightened Lindernia’s collar and brushed back her hair. “You go to the pastor and be a good girl.”

I quickly turned around when they started walking my way. Unfortunately, I’d turned into the arms of a random church member.

“It’s nice ter have new blood up here,” the man said, as he hugged me close and sniffed my hair.

“All right, everybody,” the Pastor said, ya’ll all find a seat so’s I can read a bit o’ scripture to ya.

The church was quiet as the pastor cracked open his bible.

“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned!” The pastor grew red-faced as he slammed his bible on the podium. “Ya’ll all must be belivin’ in the Lord!”

The room erupted in shouts.

“Ya’ll all know Mark’s good passages! ‘And these signs shall follow them that in my name shall they cast out devils!

they shall speak with new tongues’, brothers and sisters!”

The men and women around me held up their hands and babbled. They sounded the way people do when they coo at small children, or pets. What had I gotten myself into?

“They shall take up serpents! And if they drank any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them! They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover!”

After the scripture, the pastor broke out into a song.

Suddenly, those around me were jumping over pews, screaming and running around the building.

At first, I’d thought the man next to me had fallen into a seizure, until I realized that everyone around me was doing the same thing.

I looked around, terrified at all these babbling, twitching people. They were speaking in tongues. It looked as though some sort of mass hysteria had swept over them.

On the stage in front of me, the pastor shouted out in tongues and pulled Lindernia to the front and center of the stage.

“Praise be to the one true Lord. He hath touched us here today, but none o’ us is holy as Little Lindernia Lee, who thou hath chosen to speak in the holy language all her life.”

On either side of the stage, two men ran up the steps. They shook, babbled and screamed as they held giant snakes above their heads.

“Through the power of the Lord, we can feel no ill. No snake shall strike us dead unless it’s His will for our time to be up.”

“Thank you Lord for blessin’ little Lindernia Lee with yer most amazing gifts!”

I watched, transfixed and horrified, as the snakes were draped around her neck.

Lindernia’s face held a newly busted lip and a smile. Her body trembled, but not in the way of her fellow congregants. Lindernia’s eyes were wide and afraid.

The two snake men took her hands and helped her off the stage. She stood front and center as congregants pushed forward and threw themselves on the ground at her feet.

The men held her hands tightly and forced her to touch those kneeling or standing before her.

A snake twisted down her arm. Lindernia tensed her whole body. Looking up to her face, her eyes locked into mine. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was absolutely terrified.

Were we the only two sane people in this whole building?

I skirted quickly around the mass of hysterical congregants and ran to the lobby for a breath of air.

I hated this place.

I hated the people here.

Most of all, I hated what they had done to ‘Little Lindernia Lee’. She had to be my age, mid twenties easy, but they treated her like a dress-up doll. A thing, abused into submission, that they paraded around.

I had to help her.

§

After I took Mrs Woolford back home, I went back out on my own. Luckily the town was small, and I remembered where she’d pointed out Lindernia’s home.

I drove slowly by the little one-story house. The old wooden home had been turned a rough, dark gray from centuries of storms and sun. And like every other structure in the town, the house appeared lopsided. Whether it was built that way or had settled into soft earth, I wasn’t sure.

I pulled up the steep drive and parked my car.

What was I going to do? Go up to the front door and tell Ida Mae that I was here to take Lindernia to safety? Yeah, I’m sure that’d go over really well.

I opened my car door. In a flurry of feathers, a scattering of crows screeched and took to the air. I froze in the driveway and listened. All I could hear was a television from somewhere inside the home. It blared the same church program that I’d heard at Mrs Woolford’s place.

Instead of going up the front stairs, I walked around the side of the porch to stand under a cracked window. Even though the angry television pastor seemed impossibly loud, the sound of snoring drowned him out at times.

Movement from the corner of my eye startled me.

A large cage sat on the edge of the porch. In it, sat Lindernia Lee.

She eyed me with curiosity through the bars. She still wore her church attire. Her curls were a mess, but her blue eyes were bright and sharp.

“Oh, Lindernia,” I whispered, reaching out to stick my fingers into the cage. “What is she doing to you?”

I ran up the stairs to the porch as quietly as I could, and studied the cage. A friend of mine had one just like it. She used it when she was moving her Great Dane into her new house. The only difference, was that where my friend’s crate had a plastic bottom, this one was metal on all sides. It felt solid, and was latched by a giant padlock.

Damn it.

I held the lock and studied it. I highly doubted anyone in this town would sell me bolt cutters. Chances were, all the businesses were closed anyway.

Lindernia patted my hand and pointed over my shoulder.

At first, I couldn’t figure out where she was pointing, but then I saw it. On a hook under the porch light sat a ring of keys.

I scrambled to snatch the keys, then dropped to my knees in front of the cage door. Adrenaline coursed through me and my hands shook. I dropped the keys twice before I was finally able to open the lock. Lindernia had her arms around my neck before I’d even fully opened the door. She sobbed briefly into my shoulder, then sprinted for my car. She was in the passenger seat, belt fastened before I’d even opened my door.

Once we were both in the car, I backed out of the driveway but had no idea where to go. There wasn’t another town for at least thirty miles, and stopping for gas would draw attention to the fact that Lindernia was with me.

Lindernia chewed her fingernails and bounced her knees as we drove. When I pulled into the parking lot of the police station, her body stilled.

I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know where else to go. If the police here won’t help us, then we’ll take a road trip to the next town, okay?”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

Climbing from the car, I noticed the only other car in the parking lot belonged to the Sheriff. I sincerely hoped that was a good thing.

The police station, like everything else in the main part of the city, was a small brick building. The windows in the front weren’t level. It was as though they put one in, then started another row before they remembered the other.

I took Lindernia’s hand and gave it a squeeze, before we went up the front stairs.

The air inside was cool but damp. The fluorescent lights bathed the cramped gray interior in a bluish hue.

Everything was the same shade, except the white plastic chairs in the waiting area. Even the high trafficked carpet, fraying and pulling loose at the edges of the room, was the same corpse-like color.

The Sheriff moved to his feet behind the elevated front desk when we entered. “What can I help ya’ll with this fine day?” he asked, readjusting the belt under his overhanging belly.

“I’m just looking for someone who can help us.” I pulled Lindernia closer to me. “I think this woman is being abused and would like to file a report... of abuse... or assault... or whatever I need to file to get her some help.”

The Sheriff sucked in a breath and let out a whistle. “Those some serious allegations you’s makin’, little lady, you sure you wanna be makin’ em?” Lindernia’s eyes grew large.

“Yes,” I said, hugging her close, “I will do whatever I can to help her.”

“Okay then, ya’ll best come back here so’s I can get all her info.”

He took a set of keys off the wall and opened a door to a little room. There were two chairs and a wall mounted table. I shivered. This was clearly meant for interrogations.

“Ya’ll can have them two chairs. I’ll go grab anutherin’. An’ don’t mind the dogs none. They’s just interested in the new blood in town.”

Three German Shepherds sat in the hallway, staring at me. Ears perked forward, mouths closed, sniffing the air. Even though Lindernia and I sat on opposite sides of the table, they only had eyes for me.

“I promise they’s good boys,” the Sheriff said, lifting the chair over his head. “We just don’t often get new faces

‘round this time of year.”

He tossed a yellow legal pad on the table, hitched up his pants at the knee, and settled next to Lindernia. He scribbled a few notes before he spoke again.

“So, now, what’s all this about?”

I furrowed my brow. Was he not listening to anything I’d said?

“Lindernia. She is being abused, and I need someone to investigate.”

“Abused?” the Sheriff scoffed, looking sideways at Lindernia. “Don’t know if you’s aware, but she’s a bit of a celebrity ‘round these parts. Ain’t nobody gonna let her be abused. Her mama’d set ‘em right straight, real quick, she would.”

“Her mother is the abuser. I saw her hit Lindernia at church this morning. Just look at her black eye and busted lip.”

“You know Lindernia Lee here is known to bite herself and bang her head, doncha?”

“I personally saw her mother hit her in the face so hard it busted her lip,” I said, trying to reason with the man. “I rescued her from a dog cage before I brought her here to see you. This isn’t some small town gossip. It’s physical abuse, and likely years of mental and emotional abuse to go along with it.”

“This true, Lindernia?” the Sheriff asked.

Lindernia nodded emphatically.

“Well?” the officer said, his pen hovering over his notes. “Did yer mother, Ida Mae Gunning physically abuse you?”

Lindernia nodded even more slowly than before. The Sheriff just stared at her as though nodding wasn’t a common form of communication.

I slammed my hand on the table. “She has said ‘yes’ to you twice! What more do you need!”

“See,” the Sheriff said, clasping his hands. “She is known to make repetitive motions with her head, I don’t know if that is an answer or one o’ her ticks on account of bein’ teched an’ all.”

“How in the hell is she supposed to communicate with you if you won’t believe her nodding?”

“Well,” he said, scratching his chin. “Lindernia, I suppose you could write an account o’ what happened an’ all. Here, you can use my note pad.”

The Sheriff smiled and passed her the pen and paper.

Lindernia shook her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“See what I mean?” the Sheriff said. “She nods, then there she goes a shakin’ her head. I can’t do anything with that.”

Lindernia picked up the pen. Her fingers trembled.

The Sheriff leaned close and scrutinized her. He seemed genuinely interested in what she might write.

Carefully, slowly, Lindernia started writing a word. She used three lines to make her letters: L...I...N…

“Aww,” the Sheriff said, smiling and reaching over to rub Lindernia’s head. “She been practicin’ her name. She been doin’ so good, ‘cept for the D’s. They always turn out backward.”

I have no doubt that the expression on my face said volumes to Lindernia. After one look at me, she pushed the pad back and threw the pen at the garbage can. She covered her face and sobbed.

“Now she havin’ anuther one of them cryin’ spells she prone to. It be alright Lindernia,” the Sheriff said, patting her shoulder. “I’m sure sangin’ one of them songs you like to sang’d make yer feel better.”

Lindernia’s crying slowed, and, though she left her forehead rested on the table, her voice rang out beautiful and clear.

“‘Can loving children e’er reprove

With murmurs whom they trust and love?

Creator, I would ever be

A trusting, loving child to thee:

As comes to me or cloud or sun,

Father, thy will, not mine, be done!’”

“She sure sings purdy, ain’t she?” the Sheriff asked, looking at me with a stupid smile on his face.

The front door slammed open. Heavy footsteps across the hollow floor told me who the person was, even before I heard the voice.

“Artie! You here? You’s got her?”

“Back here, Ida Mae!” the Sheriff called out.

My mouth fell open in shock. Lindernia’s head shot up. I couldn’t believe that the Sheriff had called Lindernia’s abuser!

Ida Mae stormed back to us. Her eyes narrowed on me.

“Ida,” the Sheriff said, “This nice, young woman done found Lindernia wanderin’ around in the street. She picked her up an’ brought her here.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” Ida Mae gushed, in the fakest tone I’d ever heard from another human. “Jesus, Lord Almighty! He’s lookin’ over Lindernia, keepin’ my baby safe!”

Ida Mae wrenched Lindernia by the elbow and was escorting her out of the station before I could even register what had just happened. All I could do was stand in the doorway and watch as Ida Mae fastened Lindernia into some special belted device. I’m fairly certain it was a locally made contraption.

The Sheriff turned to look at me as Ida Mae backed down the drive and waved.

“We’s close knit ‘round here,” he said, looking down at his boots. “Lindernia been declared unfit to take care o’ herself. Ida Mae’s is her legal guardian. I called her as soon as you both walked in.”

“But I saw--”

“It don’t matter what you saw,” the Sheriff snapped. “That little girl can’t speak none, she can’t write nor read. She also hits and bites herself n’ others. Corporal punishment ain’t illegal in this state. Ain’t no way to determine if what you said’s true.”

I just stared at him. My brain wouldn’t find the words to reply.

“Ida Mae’s a force to be reckoned with. She ain’t gonna let nobody stand between her an’ her little girl. If I’s you, I’d get the hell outta Dodge.”

The Sheriff stepped back into the station and let the door slam shut behind him, leaving me alone in the parking lot.

§

I drove a few random streets, but stayed close to the city. I was hoping for any spot where my phone would have service, but it was no use. I finally parked at a little overlook point on the side of the road.

I turned off my car, cracked my windows, and listened. Sweetly chirping birds sang out. A gentle breeze loosened a few dried leaves still hanging on to high snaking branches.

It wouldn’t be long before winter set in.

There were two options. I could try to get Lindernia out of this place and possibly to the next town, maybe they could help her there. Or, I could do what the Sheriff said: get my stuff and leave.

I certainly didn’t want to be here for a single moment longer, but I couldn’t begin to imagine the hell that Lindernia was living. She was a thing to these people. A doll to dress up, some weird, religious icon.

Lindernia could communicate, I could understand her just fine. She was intelligent despite her inability to speak and write, but here, in this town, she was as the local’s said, ‘dumb’.

This place was hell for her. As much as I wanted to leave, I couldn’t leave her here.

Once twilight set in, I’d go back past her house and see if I could save her again. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. This time, I would do whatever it took to take her far away from this place.

§

Just before nightfall, I circled back to the prison where Ida Mae kept Lindernia. The cage on the front porch was empty. Only one light was on in the house. I didn’t park in the driveway this time. Instead, I drove a little bit up the street and parked on the side of the road. There hadn’t been much traffic through this area earlier, so I could only hope that there wasn’t much now.

I walked slowly to the house, using the cover of trees across the street to stay out of sight should Ida Mae come outside.

In the violet twilight, I crept up the front steps first. The cage was there, but Lindernia wasn’t in it. I stilled and listened inside. Blaring television and snoring again. Did Ida Mae do anything other than sleep and watch that damned church program?

I thought back to when Ida Mae hit Lindernia. I racked my brain, where else had she threatened to lock her up?

Then it hit me, Ida Mae threatened her with the doghouse!

I stayed close to the cracking concrete foundation as I looked for anything resembling a place Ida Mae would keep a dog. I squinted in the fading light. There, near the edge of the trees sat a small, makeshift wooden box.

I started to make my way toward it when I heard rattling behind me. The first image that ran through my head was of Ida Mae on the front porch with a shotgun, but I could still hear her snoring from inside. The rattling sounded again. This time I saw a couple of cellar doors shake. I ran over to them.

“Lindernia,” I whispered. “Is that you in there?” In response, the doors rattled again.

This time, Ida Mae didn’t use a lock, she’d laced a twoby-four through the handles of the rotting wooden cellar.

I quickly slid out the board and opened the door. There below me, with her hands bloody from trying to break through the wood, sat Lindernia. She quickly climbed out and took the door from me. Gently closing it back, she stole a glance toward the house, then slid the two-by-four back through the handles.

I tapped her shoulder and motioned for her to follow me. I led the way down the street to my car. My adrenaline was running high. Once inside the car, Lindernia stole a glance back at the house, then pulled her knees up to her chin.

In the green light of my dash display, I could see the deep welts running up her arms. No doubt Ida Mae had punished her severely for her disobedience.

Out of nowhere, Lindernia screeched and patted my arm. I stopped the car to see where she was pointing. We were passing the church. When I turned back, her seat was empty. She was already trudging up the hill to the back of the church.

“Lindernia,” I said, turning off the car and scrambling up the hill behind her. “If we don’t go now, they will find you and take you back.”

She turned and beckoned me to follow.

As I neared, I realized she was looking for something and singing lightly under her breath.

She thrust open a gate and held it for me. I followed her inside but stopped abruptly.

All around me were snakes. Big ones, small ones, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, they were all here.

Lindernia pulled a cane and pillowcase from a hanger mounted to the side of the church.

I wanted to speak to her, to yell at her, but my fear of snakes kept me in my place. As she scooped them up, they hung limply and barely moved. She slid a couple of snakes over to the side. When they didn’t move, I realized what was going on.

The show they put on in the church was horrifying, but back here was absolute hell. Snakes were in old plastic buckets, paint cans, and makeshift containers of all types. Some slithered freely, but it was clear that the free-moving ones moved the least, if they moved at all.

Tiptoeing back to me, she thrust the snake filled pillowcase into my hands and started filling another.

I stood frozen. Half in shock and half in fear as she went about picking up another batch. It took three pillowcases, but she had picked up all the still-moving snakes. On her way out, she left the gate open and kicked out a bottom piece of wood.

She sprinted across the street and dumped the pillow cases near a little pond. Climbing back into the car, she sniffled, smiled, and nodded her head. I cranked the car.

We hadn’t even gone a full mile when my back window shattered. I heard barking dogs, shouting, and more gunshots. I drove faster. More shots hit the car. I felt, rather than heard, one of my tires blow, causing us to skid into a guard rail. My front bumper was stuck in the twisted metal.

We weren’t going to be able to drive out of here.

Lindernia squeezed my arm, then sprang from the passenger seat, climbing down the slippery rocky embankment without me. Another round of gunshots prompted me to follow her.

Her blonde hair glinted in the moonlight as she ran. I struggled to keep up with her. Ahead of us, a series of rotted out buildings stood. She went through the window of one and beckoned for me to follow her. Inside, she paced and chewed her fingernails.

Ida Mae’s voice rang out through the woods around us. “Lindernia Lee! Yer know that girl is tryin’ to take yer away from us. She tryin’ to do the same thang that truck driver did. And yer know what happened to him. We’s not let nobody take yer away!”

Lindernia started singing. First her voice was quiet, but then grew louder.

“‘O ne’er will I at life repine!

Enough that thou hast made it mine;’”

I turned around to try to shush her. Dogs barking grew louder with each note she sang. I peered out the window to see flashlights sweeping through the trees.

“‘When fall the shadow cold of death,

I yet will sing, with parting breath—’”

When I looked back, her face had twisted into a sneer.

Her pale arms arced high above her head.

“‘As comes to me or shade or sun,

Father, thy will, not mine, be done!’”

A blood-curdling screech escaped her lips. A rectangular flash of gray shimmered in the moonlight.

§

My eyes were wet. I couldn’t move my arms. I felt seasick.

Noises far off. My head felt like it was filled with a thousand buzzing hornets. “Over here!”

Voices, yelling. Scuffling of feet.

“I got her! She’s safe!”

My heart leapt. Had I been found? It was dark and cold.

Was I lost?

“Lookie what you done! You know better than to run off like that, Little Missy!” a voice crooned. “Who’d a taken care o’ ya if you done went and got yerself lost?”

I squinted in the dark. My cheek rested on a black, wooden floor. Directly in my line of sight sat a broken cinder block. The corner gleamed crimson in a beam from a flashlight.

“Ain’t nobody but us gonna understand a sinning, dumbstruck mute, Lindernia Lee! You’s goin’ around an’ killin’ people. They gonna take you, lock you up and throw away the key’s what they’re gonna do.”

I heard Lindernia sob. And even though I couldn’t turn my head, I knew her face was buried into her mother’s giant bosom. Footsteps crunched over dead leaves and pine straw.

“Now you go with Miss Beulah. She gon’ take care of you, git you all cleaned up. We’s yer family here, and we’s all you got. I know you’s dumb as a box of rocks, but you gotta think before you go throwing your lot in with strangers in town.”

Voices and the shuffling of feet receded in the distance.

The sound of barking dogs, however, did not.

“We can’t keep doin’ this, Ida Mae,” the Sheriff whispered harshly. “They’s got whole science labs that’s gonna find them missing people. This the third one!”

“An, whatcha propose we do, Artie? Lindernia the only reason we got ta roof over our heads! The mines all done closed up! Without Lindernia’s sangin’, we ain’t a got no people visitin’ this bumbfuck town.”

“But we’re killin’ people, Ida-Mae!”

“We ain’t a killed nobody, Artie! Lindernia done murdered all three.”

“Now, you know that ain’t true, Ida-Mae!”

“Is too! They all died by her hands, not ours.”

“But we drove her to it, Ida-Mae! We let ‘em suffer an’ didn’t get ‘em no help! She only killin’ ‘em to save ‘em!”

A shotgun cocked. “You gon’ let them dogs go clean up the scraps, Artie Wynn, or is they feastin’ on two tonight?” “Now I don’ want no trouble Ida-Mae.”

More crunching leaves, pine straw sliding around. A cold burst of air, unkempt doggie nails on hardwood floors.

Warm tears stung my cheeks as I tried to see through my bleary eyes.

A cold nose against my chin, the quick lap of a doggie tongue on my cheek.

Growling, snarling. Brilliant teeth in the light of the moon.

Blinding pain. Unable to scream. My larynx, no longer inside my body. Intestines tugged to the far corner.

My eyes rolled up to look at the bright full moon outside the window. Quiet, clean and crisp, like new fallen snow. Such a stark contrast to the stench of bowels in the messy cabin around me.

Charity Langley is an author who loves all things creepy. She has written for several wonderful anthologies including Dreams of Desolation and By Year’s End: A Year 47 Anthology. She has also published Wicked Intentions, a novel set to be the first in her Abattoir series. When she isn’t writing, Charity enjoys gardening, spending time with her husband, her four cats, her friends, and decorating her house in neon colors and sugar skulls.

THE BEND

BY C.W. BLACKWELL

Eastern Tennessee, 1922

I found the first body at dawn, as the sun crawled from its starry web, and the wheat tousled like pages of newsprint in the Blue Ridge wind. Something had woken the dogs not long before. I heard them whining and scrabbling in the dirt out by the field line. They only whined that way when something wandered through the property -- mostly skunks or raccoons. The way the river bends, the animals funnel through and stall at the river bank like they don’t have any other direction to go. But when I saw the torn and filthy hem of that dead woman’s blouse and those busted shoes lying in the dirt next to the old, small-block tractor engine, I thought at first the damn corn liquor had caught up to me.

Thing is, I hadn’t had a drink since my Maggie died. And when I saw that lace stirring silent in the wind, there was a part of me that thought it was her, as if she came back somehow and was too tired to make it to the door. I stood there with the Colt in my gun hand, and a cooling cup of coffee in my left, just wondering what kind of face was staring up, watching the constellations subtract into that gradient sky.

Whoever it was, it wasn’t Maggie. The woman’s face was wrinkled up like dried fruit, her eyes were caved, and her dress was the kind the old ladies wore to church thirty years back in that Victorian style. It was like the earth had just spit an old, dead woman out of the ground without an apology, like her grave had run out of space and given her an eviction notice.

But what bothered me most were her shoes. They were split and muddy like she’d been running all night along the river bank -- not what I’d expect from a woman waiting to be carried by her savior to the very threshold of the hereafter.

I kneeled into the dirt and stared into that rotten, long-ago face. One of the dogs sat against me, panting and whining as if telling me the truth of it.

“Now now, Chief,” I said. I cupped the back of the dog’s skull and petted his neck. “You see who done this? You see who came and laid this body down?”

The dog yipped and eyed the corpse, the knobs of his brows jerking back and forth. His ears perked, and he stepped away from me, staring hard at the riverbank. The other dogs were barking out that way. I stood and thumbed the hammer on the Colt.

“Go Chief,” I said, pointing to the river. The dog sprinted off, and I took another eyeful of the dead woman. The way the Holston River bends, whoever dumped her would either be trapped on the bank with four dogs at his heels, or floating down that shallow current toward Baneberry.

I turned to the farmhouse and saw Jodie standing on the porch in her nightgown with a corn husk doll dangling from her hand. She looked like a doll herself with her big messy curls and that mute store-window stillness. I waved at her to go back into the house, but she just stood there looking at me and listening to the dogs howl. I lowered the hammer of the revolver and went to her. When she saw my face, her eyes teared up.

“Why the dogs mad, Papa?” she said.

“Just a stag out on the riverbank,” I said. “Now get on in the house and stay there till I come back.”

“You ain’t gonna bring your rifle?”

I looked at the revolver in my hand. She was smart for a child, like her mother was.

“No, this’ll do. Now go on inside.”

“But Papa.”

“Ain’t gonna tell you again, Jodie.”

She stomped into the house and stood behind the door, her green eye sparkling through the crack like a raw emerald in the sluice of a gem mine.

“Shut it all the way, darlin.”

The door closed, and I hurried down to the river.

The water was brown, and a fragile lid of ice sat upon the gravel bank, swirling out into the current where it had broke apart and failed to grab onto winter. I found the dogs in a half-circle around a coyote willow that was late to drop its leaves. One of the dogs was lunging in and out of the brush with its snout curled and spasmodic. I put my fingers in my mouth and whistled. The animals scurried around the brush with the hair raised on their necks, but they wouldn’t leave the tree alone. I whistled again, and when they wouldn’t obey, I fired a round into the air. The dogs crouched and scattered with flat ears, and when they finally dispersed, I saw a form hiding in the wands of the willow.

“Come on out,” I yelled. “If you reckon the dogs are mean, you ain’t gonna like my forty-five.”

The man didn’t reply. Just a silent shadow in the leaves.

A flock of whooping cranes honked on the far side of the bank and the wind stirred up a mineral stench from across the water.

“Last chance to do this the friendly way,” I said. “I don’t wanna come in after you, and you won’t like it none either.” Again the whooping cranes.

Again the wind in the willow leaves.

I stepped into the brush and parted the willow wands with the barrel of the gun. Leaning against the bark was another leathery corpse, entirely more skeleton than flesh. The thing was naked save for a ragged shirt that hung in filthy ribbons, and its scalp was just a fetid patchwork of hair that clumped about the sides of its head like some mangy animal. I pushed the revolver into its shoulder, and it toppled sideways into the brambles, rigid as a two-byten. Its arms were stiff and reaching, and its rotten jaw laid unhinged in an unending silent scream.

“I’ll be goddamned,” I said, and when I said it, there was something in those words that made me wonder if there was truth to it.

§

I found a rat-eaten tarp in the barn that reeked of dust and diesel oil and rolled the bodies up one by one, carrying them into the cellar. I laid them next to the cedarwood shelves I had built for Maggie’s preserves. There were still a dozen jars all lined in a particolored row, and the wood sagged under the weight of them. I took a jar of sand cherries and turned it over in my hands. The fruit was packed tight like there was a solitary thing inside, a manifold object of dark red dimples. I returned the jar and eyed the dead on the floor. I suddenly felt entombed by their savage stillness, as if I were just another corpse among them. It was as if the cellar had become a catacomb. A dug-up chamber yet to appear on the cover of some ten-cent magazine. I climbed the steps and closed the cellar door.

The morning was now bright, like a movie projector whose reel had finished and wound through. The air was gusty and smelled of ripe wheat and bird dung. A thunderhead rose on the horizon. A black siege on the very fringes of the world. I wedged a cedar branch into the iron hasps so the dogs couldn’t get into the cellar, but I’d be lying if a part of me wasn’t more concerned with keeping those damn things down in the hole.

I shouldered into the wind, past the old brick well at the front of the farmhouse and saw Jodie sitting on the porch steps with her curls flattening in the gale.

“Thought I told you to keep inside,” I said. I didn’t mean to yell, but the way I had to talk over the sound of the wind made my voice mean.

Jodie stood up with her eyes narrowed. Her corn husk doll was clutched to her chest, and her teeth were chattering in the wind.

“You kilt one of them doggies?” She said. She was standing in front of the door as if threatening to block me out of my own damn house.

“No, darlin,” I said. “Them dogs are alive and ornery
as ever.”

“What was it you rolled up in that blanket, then?”

“It was a tarp, honey.”

“So?”

“Ain’t no ‘So’ this or ‘So’ that,” I said. “Let’s go inside and light a fire.”

Jodie stared at me. She glanced at the dogs squatting in the front yard with their pelts parting errantly in the wind.

Then she went inside without another word.

I lit a fire in the cook stove, and I stirred up some flapjack batter. Jodie sat in the hallway with her brother’s toy soldiers lined up like they were about to march off to some faraway battlefront. She talked about William more than she did Maggie, and sometimes I thought it was because she was lonely for a companion. Same reason she was so protective of those dogs, I guessed.

“Papa, you think William’s fightin’ a war somewheres?”

“No, darlin’,” I said. I poured a couple bone colored disks of batter into the pan over the cook stove. “He died of the influenza; you already know about it.”

“I know,” she said. “Just wanna pretend.”

“Fine to pretend,” I said. “Truth is he might’ve, the way he loved them toy soldiers.”

“Would he be mad if I played with them, Papa?”

“No,” I said. “Reckon he’d be happy about it.”

“I reckon too.”

I flipped the flapjacks and went to her. She was looking down, moving the soldiers in a half-moon formation.

“They didn’t want to leave us,” I said. “You know that?”

“Yeah. It was the inflooza.”

“They didn’t have a choice. It just took ‘em away.”

“Papa?”

“What darlin’?”

“Whatcha put in that tarp?” I went back to the stove.

“Nothing, Jodie. Gonna need it when I start cuttin’ the wheat is all.”

She didn’t respond, like I hadn’t said anything at all.

Like she knew I was lying.

§

By nightfall, the rain had come roaring over the land, and with it a volley of thunder that shook mud from the ceiling. Lightning brightened the windows like some monstrous, white retina blinking through the glass.

I had put Jodie down to sleep and was now checking on her through the crack in the door with a lantern in my hand. She had lined William’s toy soldiers in a row beneath her bed as if they were protecting her from something. The floor moaned under the weight of my step. I saw her stir, and she rolled to the side of the bed to make sure those army men were still there.

“Jodie?” I spoke to her calmly.

“What, Papa?” Her voice sounded far away.

“You alright, girl?”

“The rain is noisy.”

“I know, darlin’. Like cats and dogs.”

“Yeah,” she said. “The dogs are noisy too.”

I tilted my head to the window. I hadn’t heard the dogs at all, but after a moment standing in the doorway, I could now make out their calls just over the rain. I pushed open the bedroom door and kneeled on the mattress, looking out the sweaty glass window. I blew out the lantern and stared at the flooded world awash in darkness. The sky brightened in a strobe, and out toward the barn, I saw a man whirling toward the house with the dogs scattered at its feet.

“Who is that, Papa?”

I hadn’t noticed Jodie standing beside me, her hot breath fogging up the window. There was another flash, and the window rattled in the sill. The figure was closer now, and the dogs were howling madly in the wind.

“Papa, he looks lost.”

“Yeah, I reckon he is,” I said. “Maybe more lost than anybody’s ever been lost.”

I went to the front room and put on my coat and boots and pulled the revolver from the top shelf of the bookcase.

Jodie was standing in the hallway, watching me.

“Go back to bed, Jodie.”

“But Papa.”

I pointed at the hallway and glared. I didn’t want to yell, and after searching my face she knew I didn’t want to either. She stomped back down the hall, and I could hear those soldiers toppling over like she’d kicked them down in a fit.

I opened the front door and lifted the collar around my neck. There was a sheen of water on the ground that glowed white under the sky’s brightening. The rain hissed upon the land, and an electric stench permeated the air. I ran to the well and stood beside it with the Colt leveled at the barn.

Another flash. I saw the man whirling through the mud, the dogs circling like a pack of wolves. It was just like the others: a filthy corpse of bones and rags. I walked toward it, and as I drew near I saw the rain recoil off its fleshless skull. It lumbered one way, then swung around in the opposite direction, aimless and confused. The thing looked like a drunkard who couldn’t find his way home. Another arc pulsed over the wheat field, and the thing turned to me. For a moment we faced each other, and for the first time, I could swear it was aware of my presence. Like it somehow recognized me through those hollow sockets. There was a part of me that wanted to put it down, but I knew Jodie was watching from the window.

She had no doubt seen enough.

The dogs were now hysterical. I knew Jodie would forgive the dogs much sooner than she’d forgive me.

“Get him,” I yelled, as another thunderclap thronged the air.

The dogs only barked louder. I pointed at the corpse and yelled again. Chief was the first to obey. He bit the thing’s ankle and pulled backward, sending the rotten man into a cartwheel in my direction. The old bitch with the white spots leapt onto its hip and knocked it down into the mud. The animals circled, lunging and biting until I pressed my boot into its knotted spine and waved them all away. I pinned it into the ground as it flapped its arms and clawed with its pin-like toes, making furrows in the mud.

I slipped off my belt and looped the tail of it through the dead man’s rib cage. I threaded the buckle and drew it taut, using it like a leash to drag the corpse toward the cellar. After a few paces, it managed to get to its feet again, but I gave the belt a hard pull and sent it back into the mud, dragging it flailing and writhing the rest of the way.

With one foot on the dead man, I raised the other leg and kicked the cedar branch from the hasps. Before I could pull open the cellar doors, they jolted upward from the inside. The smell of cherry preserves and rotten flesh folded into the wind, and the flashing sky shone on the other dead man staring up at me from the hole. Somehow the thing had come alive and was scrambling at the opening from the top step, its teeth gnashing like tiny kernels of eternity while the female corpse swayed on her muddy feet in the darkness.

I let up on the thing under my boot and kicked the ascending corpse square in the jaw. It fell backward into the cellar and clattered on the ground. I heaved the belt and the dead man came with it, clawing and groping at the edges of the doorway until it finally slipped into the hole and fell away. I pulled the doors closed and fastened the branch once more. This time the doors lurched and bounced as those rotten things pushed from the inside.

I stood there with the water pooling around my boots, watching the cellar doors and trying to gauge whether the branch was strong enough to hold all three of them clambering against it. After a few minutes the doors stopped banging, and the only sound was the rain upon the farmhouse and the thunder pounding like hellfire over the hills.

I tore off my clothes to scrub my skin free of that graveyard stench. I went shirtless to the barn and popped the panel on the thresher and lifted a half-bottle of whiskey from beside the threshing drum and twisted out the cork. I pressed the bottle to my nose and smelled that piercing oaky fume, imagining the warmth of it sinking into my gut, burning my nose with each sip as I breathed it back out into the wind.

Instead, I looked back at the bedroom window, knowing that Jodie was there watching me and that she had seen the whole thing. I wrung the neck of the bottle and flung it out into the gale, hard enough so I never heard it land.

I lowered my trousers, kicked off my boots, and went inside. The house was warm, and the stove glowed redorange through the iron vents. I fed it more wood, as if the heat was the only thing that made me different from those cold dead things in the cellar.

“Papa?”

Jodie was standing in the hallway with a clean shirt and trousers draped over her arms like some kind of tiny house maid.

“Bring those to Papa, darlin’.”

“Papa,” she said again as I dressed by the fire. Her voice was low and her eyes fixed to the floor. “You was fightin’ out there and sayin’ bad words.” “I know,” I said.

She shuddered, and a tear raced over her cheekbone.

“Thing is,” I said, wiping her cheek with my thumb. “I didn’t hurt nobody, and nobody hurt me. He was just a crazy old man lost in the rain.”

“Looked like he was just bones,” she said. The words scared her when she said it.

“Some men are just older than others I reckon.”

“You gonna be bones someday, Papa?”

“Not for a long time. I ain’t even close.”

She stood by the fire until little drops of sweat weeped from her forehead. I carried her to the room and tucked her in. She touched my face in the dark, pulled the blanket up to her eyes, and sighed a kind of stertorous breath like before a body gives over to sleep. I stood over her for a while, watching the rain through the window as it swept and peppered the mud in elaborate patterns, and I wondered how many of those skeletal figures were tilting along the bend in the river, so strangely and utterly lost.

§

I woke to the sound of someone knocking on the front door.

It wasn’t an urgent sound, but a polite and steady fourbeat, not unlike a neighbor had come up for a cup of sugar. The storm was still rolling, and the night was a long way from passing through to morning. I stood up from the chair and drew my revolver from the cushion.

I pulled the curtain back from the door window and saw a man standing in the rain. Even in the low light, I could tell he was old, but not so much as to surpass the very threshold of what is natural. I opened the door with my left hand, the gun steady in my right.

The man regarded me with a stoic expression and showed his palm. Not so much as a greeting, but as a neutral gesture. A request for parley. In his other hand was a long staff, like a shepherd would carry.

“You gotta tell me your name before I invite you in,” I said, my revolver pulled close to my rib cage. “And that stick stays on the porch.”

“Zephro,” he obliged, his hand still steady in the air. “My name is Zephro.”

“Alright Mr. Zephro,” I said. “Just tell me how you come up without startlin’ the dogs, and we can start as friends.”

Zephro looked to either side and stood himself straight.

He was a half-foot taller than me if even an inch.

“It’s a fine question, and I’ll explain it to your satisfaction,” he said. He laid his staff against the side of the house. “We have much to talk about, you and I. Let’s begin as you said. As friends.”

I lowered my weapon and pulled the door wide. Light still flashed in the sky, but it was silent, as if the sky had grown tired of its own sound.

Zephro walked slowly into the room.

“I ain’t gonna offer you coffee, on account of the night I had,” I said.

“I wouldn’t drink it anyway,” said Zephro.

I gestured to the chair by the fire, but he only stood. His calm, old eyes glistened in the light of the cook stove.

“Sounds like you got some business on your mind, Mr.

Zephro,” I said.

Zephro nodded.

“You have something of mine, dear farmer. Something that must be returned.”

“I never took nothin’ that wasn’t mine,” I said.

“I didn’t say it was taken, just that you have it.”

“Ain’t got time for riddles,” I said. “Not sure where you come from, but around here people say what’s on their mind.”

“Think of me as a shepherd,” he began, his bone white hands gesturing kindly as he spoke. “I tend to a flock, and sometimes my charges run astray.”

“Haven’t seen any lost sheep around here,” I said.

“Not sheep,” he said. “My flock is of a different sort.”

“You’re wasting my time old man.”

“The dead,” he blurted. The tone of his voice was severe now, as if he rued speaking of it directly. “I shepherd the dead. That’s how I passed through your property without alerting your animals. They know me. All animals do. As for the dead, this terrain is difficult for them. They often get lost.”

“I built this house ten years ago with my own two hands,” I said. “Never seen dead folks that weren’t my own.”

“Until now,” said Zephro. His eyes were now wide and electric. “I know you have them. You must hand them over to me at once.”

“Now don’t get balled up, Zephro,” I said. I built a cigarette and rolled one end on the stove until it glowed. “I have what you want, and I don’t mind giving them to you.”

“Good.” He rubbed his hands together and made a strange expression that could have been a smile.

“But you have somethin’ I want too.” I blew a cloud of smoke into the space between us. “Two years ago, I lost my wife and boy. Spanish Influenza. You can have what’s yours, but I want what’s mine.”

Zephro didn’t break his gaze. He just stood there, frozen.

“I only came for what belongs to me, farmer,” he said.

“I did not come to trade.”

“Yet here you are, trading with some damn farmer.”

“It doesn’t work that way, you must know that.”

“I don’t know shit about it,” I said. “But if you want them damn corpses, you bring my family back. Then we got something to talk about. If not, then I’m gonna pack as many of them damn things away until you got to answer to someone meaner and uglier than yourself.”

“You don’t know who have under your house, do you?”

“I don’t care if it’s Abraham Lincoln and his generals. You bring my Maggie and William back, and you can have your people. And anyone else that comes wandering by.” Zephro gazed at the cook stove, his thin lips pursed in thought. “Trust is difficult,” he said. His voice was light and distant. “But if you turned over the dead to me, I would be amenable to bringing your family through the wheat field for a visit. If more of my flock turns up, we could expand our agreement.”

“I ain’t no fool, Mr. Zephro.” I finished the smoke and slipped it into the stove vent. “You get one tonight, then you’ll bring my wife and boy to the field line. Then another tomorrow night. After the third night you get all them corpses that ever wander through and I get Maggie and William for good. They ain’t gonna look like them rotten things in the cellar either, but just like they was before they got sick.”

“You ask a lot of me, farmer,” said Zephro.

“Not more than what’s mine.”

“It would be an unusual arrangement.”

“Wranglin dead folks in the middle of the night is unusual for me too, Mr. Zephro.”

He pursed his lips and studied me. He stuck out his hand, a white and knotted thing that looked as if it had clutched that staff for millennia.

I took his hand and shook it.

“Follow me to the cellar, Zephro,” I said.

Zephro bowed and gestured me onward.

§

The rain had settled into a heavy mist that dampened everything without prejudice, as if the night had grown tired and was now just dreaming of rain. I led Zephro to the cellar and flung open the doors, expecting the dead to come scrambling out like animals. Instead, the stairwell was clear. I dipped the lantern into the space and saw the corpses swaying calmly in the dark. I found the one with the belt still looped around its spine and guided it up the steps. It followed slowly, step by step until it was standing in the mud with Zephro looking it over as if he knew some way to evaluate the dead.

“Meet us at the field line thirty minutes before sunrise, farmer.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “Just like they was before, Zephro.”

“Yes, I understand.”

§

I stood on the porch and rolled another cigarette, watching the distant ridgeline for signs of morning. I hummed some old melody I didn’t know all the words to, just smoking and humming as if each cloud I blew and each refrain made the night shrink back a little. I heard a bird flapping over the water and could just make out its dark form passing along like it had died somewhere and abandoned a shadow of itself. I lifted my collar and went down to the field line, the wheat now still and quiet.

It wasn’t long before I saw silhouettes shifting near the horizon like a team of pickers coming back from a full moon harvest. Slowly they came, teetering in the waist-high wheat as if they were beat-tired down to their very souls. Leading the crowd was Zephro, his staff arcing in a fulcrum as he walked, pressed against the pre-dawn twilight like a wayward prophet. As they neared, Zephro waved his staff and the herd stopped and hunkered in the darkness.

“Hello farmer,” said Zephro as he drew closer.

I didn’t answer, just stood and squinted into the field looking for my family.

“There,” said Zephro, pointing to the edge of the crowd. “There they are.”

My head was sweating under my hat despite the freeze in the air. “I hope you ain’t just gonna point at em,” I said.

“No, just give them time.”

Soon, a pair broke away, one silhouette smaller than the other. They shouldered toward me with familiarity. I took a step out to the field, impatient for a clear glimpse, but Zephro held out his staff and the figures stopped. “Stay where you are farmer. Let them come to you.” “They look just like them other things,” I said.

“Yes, just wait.”

Zephro lowered his staff again, and the pair advanced. With each step, their forms straightened a little, and their pace quickened. I could see their shoulders raise and their staggering gait become fluid and free. They ran to me with their arms out, but Zephro swung his staff low along the ground. They stopped, mute and still but with smiles spread across their pale faces and their eyes glittering in the light of dawn.

“Maggie.” I said. Her name just fell out of me like it had been waiting all these years for a chance to leap out. Like those preserves she bottled up just as fresh and sweet as the day they were sealed. She was beautiful, and her smile reminded me of a time long before we settled on the Holston.

I took another step, just wanting to lift her up into my arms, but Zephro hissed and warned me off.

“William is that you, boy?” I said.

The boy grinned and pressed himself into Maggie’s side as she tousled his hair.

“I’m gonna get you back,” I called to them, and when I said it, the words choked out and my eyes welled. “Not tonight, but soon. I made a deal with Zephro.” There was a slam at the front door.

Jodie ran toward us with her arms crossed.

“Jodie,” I called out. “Jodie, wait.”

The girl didn’t listen. She went scurrying past me into the field. Zephro yelled and waved his staff, but still she ran. She came up close to William with her arms full of toy soldiers and dumped them all at his feet except for one that she held in her tiny hand, lifting it out to the boy.

“I kept em all for you, brother,” she said. “Every one of em.”

Everyone looked at Zephro, who had his staff raised in the air like he was about to strike someone with it. He suddenly looked like a potent and enduring presence, not just a frail bureaucrat of the dead.

“Ain’t no harm in it, Mr. Zephro,” I said. “I got your people, and I’m good on my word.”

Zephro narrowed his eyes and glanced at the rest of the group swaying in the field. “This meeting will end now,” he said.

He gestured to Maggie and William, and they turned and went, their steps becoming slow and labored as they closed the distance. My heart sank as I watched them rejoin the group, as if I were watching them die all over again.

“One last thing, farmer,” said Zephro. “I found this in the field, I believe it belongs to you.”

It was the bottle of whiskey I had thrown out earlier.

“How old are you, Mr. Zephro?” I asked. He seemed annoyed by the question.

“I don’t keep track,” he said.

I took the bottle and poured it into the dirt.

“Well even if you were ten-thousand years old, you’d never taste such a wretched rotgut in your whole damn life. And I’d keep your strays in my cellar another ten-thousand years if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain. I’ll be here the same time tomorrow, Zephro.”

Zephro looked me over with those ancient eyes and turned without a word, cutting a path through the wheatfield.

I held Jodie close and we watched him leave, watched the dead waiting in the distance. Over the ridge was an orange band of light and a shelf of clouds that still looked full of rain. Somewhere the dogs howled, and the air brimmed with that strange smell of the long-departed.

C.W. Blackwell was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California where he still lives today with his wife and two children. His passion is to blend poetic narratives with pulp dialogue to create strange and rhythmic genre fiction. He writes mostly crime fiction, dark fiction and weird westerns. His work has appeared in Mystery Weekly, Switchblade Magazine, Econoclash Review, Pulp Modern and Broadswords and Blasters.

BRAIDS, LIKE ROOTS

DAMASCUS MINCEMEYER

The year I was ten was a time before radio, before airplanes began delivering mail, before the Archduke’s assassination ignited the Great War. The Titanic wouldn’t sink for another few months, and even automobiles and trucks were a rare enough sight in the rural West Virginia of my youth that children would get excited whenever one lumbered into town. Beyond the telephone at Mr. Laufenberg’s general store, news spread across the far-flung farmsteads by wordof-mouth and nothing else. In that kind of life, a neighbor’s word was gospel. If someone said something was true, it was damnably true, and you’d better believe it. And those two weeks near summer’s end was something damnable, something that still haunts the dreams of an old man.

It was the last Saturday of August, and I’d gone to fish at a stream along the farthest corner of my father’s farm, a good mile from the house. With my imagination being what it was, the journey there and back was often longer than it should’ve been as I’d stop, playing along the way, pretending I was a soldier at Gettysburg or some pirate primed to sack a seaside village. All it took was a good-sized tree branch to serve as a makeshift sword and a simple hike would turn into a half-day affair.

That day, though, I never reached my destination; instead I came upon the corn field where my father worked. There’d been a wickedly violent rainstorm the previous night that tumbled what had once been the largest and most majestic oak on our farm, pushing it over until it jutted from the soggy earth, half-collapsed and threatening to crash down entirely on the crops. Partly obscured in a trench he’d dug around the base of it was my mud-spattered father, spade in hand, wiping sweat from his brow. That is how I shall always remember Jed Whitcomb--robust, solid, unflinching in the face of adversity and unfailing in determination.

When my father spotted me on the far side of the field, he stopped his digging, leaned on the shovel, and smiled broadly, waving to me. Eager for what looked like an adventure, I darted towards him, and nearing the site I could see what situation had developed: the tree, when it toppled, hadn’t dislodged completely from the ground, and the dense roots prevented any easy excavation.

My father climbed from the trench just as I ran up to him. He was massive in my boy’s mind, strong of limb and thick with muscle, a giant of man with a head of bushy blonde hair going gray at the temples and that wide grin that scoffed at the pain of hard labor. I didn’t notice then how he used the shovel as a crutch to aid his ascent from the hole, nor did I see the grimace as he rubbed his left shoulder or hear the fatigue in his words when he spoke. To me he was as many boys see their fathers: more than mortal, if not short of a god.

“Thomas,” he said, breathless. “I thought you were going fishing today.”

“I was aimin’ to, Pa. But this looks like a dandy of a mess you’ve got.”

My father rubbed his shoulder again. “It’s hell of a mess. This here tree should’ve come out years ago,” he rapped the side of the leaning trunk with the shovel. “Thing’s deader than Abraham, and probably twice as old. It’ll flatten some of the corn if I don’t take it out, and we can’t afford that. Not after the summer we’ve had.”

I glanced at the tree with fresh eyes. Until then I’d seen
it as just part of the landscape, part of the background. But my father was right: the tree was old, gnarled and good for nothing, not even climbing. Though it was considerable in size, its limbs were dry and shriveled, never seeming to sprout enough foliage to look quite as lush as the other trees along the field’s edge.

My father stared at the oak then, and I heard him mumble, “If you’d just taken the time away from that
miserable bottle of yours…”

I looked at my father. “Pa?”

“Hmm?” He replied, acting like I hadn’t heard him, but then he said,“It’s nothing, son. I just… I knew this tree was a danger years ago, even when I was your age, but my father refused to remove it,” he paused, giving the oak a long hard glare. “Now it comes down to me to do the work or else.”

There was always a certain tone my father had when speaking about Grandpa Whitcomb. His name had been Fred, and he died before I was born, so I never knew much about him. Yet whenever he was mentioned, it was always with the most hushed of airs. I gathered he’d been a drinker, and based on how Pa’s demeanor would change whenever anyone brought Grandpa up, the two had never seen eye to eye on anything.

“Why don’t you get Günter to help you dig the tree out, Pa?” I asked. Günter was our farmhand, a German immigrant who mainly tended after the animals while Pa managed the crops. My father shook his head.

“Günter has his own duties to look after.”

I smiled then, boyish confidence coursing through me.

“Well, I’ll help you,” I tossed my fishing gear down, grabbed the shovel from him, and began marching toward the tree. “See if I don’t.”

My father was quiet for all of two seconds before rocking back on his heels with jovial laughter. “I appreciate your gusto, son, but I was going to hitch up old Bessie and see if she can’t pull the trunk down the rest of the way before suppertime. Now if you want to help do that, I’ve got no quarrel.”

Our walk from field to homestead wasn’t far, but the mid-day was getting warm, and my stomach growled as we approached the barn.

“I’ll gather the harnesses,” my father said. “You go on and get Bessie from her stall.”

Now it may have been because I was young, and youth propagates a certain casual superstition, but our barn was the one place that always made me uneasy. Like most things on our farm, it was in need of no small repair; the elements had done their damage to the building, but there was just something about the half-rotten timbers, foul dust, and forgotten equipment that played on the mind. If I was set to do work in there, I’d do it, but it was the only place that I never lingered in longer than I had to, and I certainly never played there.

Just gaining access was a challenge in and of itself--the main door was warped at the top, with a rusted iron ring that needed at least two hard yanks before it budged, even for my father’s hands. He would joke, much to my mother’s chagrin, that the kick the door gave would alone serve as a deterrent to any witching-hour thief, and struggling to jerk it open that day I believed him.

The inside of the barn was cool and musty, and as I went to where the bridles hung on the wall, I could hear Bessie moving in her stall. She was the only horse we had at the time, when just the previous year we’d owned three; one filly had gotten its foot caught in a sinkhole, cut an artery and died, and the other, a strapping colt named Samson, caught a nasty colic and had to be put down. Since then, our old mare had bore the brunt of the heavy labor around the farm, and the months of plowshare had taken its toll on her sorrel beauty.

What I saw when I opened that stall still burns as vividly as on that very day. Bessie stood there, frail and tired-looking, her breathing heavy and labored, scratches covering her back, brownish trails of blood streaking her flanks, and as I walked over, she skittishly backed away.

“It’s just me, old girl,” I said, reaching out to her; this time Bessie allowed me to touch her, and I caressed the length of her face. Slowly her breathing calmed, and checking the wounds on her back, I was dumbfounded to see both her mane and tail were neatly braided for no apparent reason.

My father entered the barn then, calling my name. When I didn’t reply, Pa came to the stall, the same bewilderment I’d experienced obvious on his face. “What in the Lord’s name...” he said, gaze fixed on Bessie’s scratched-up back before he spied the braids. “What’s this all about?”

“I didn’t do it, Pa, I swear,” I insisted, and he shook his head.

“I never thought you did. Old girl looks like she’s been run roughshod all over the county,” he ran his hands gently over Bessie’s side. “We’ll have to tend to these cuts. Let’s go to the house and fetch some water.”

My father wasn’t an easily cowed man, but when I think of that moment with the two of us in the stall, I remember his hands quivering as he took a brush and combed out the braids. Surprisingly they came undone easily, and we soon left the barn.

Just being in the sunlight dissipated the oppressive atmosphere, and my apprehension subsided, though I don’t think my father’s nerves settled so quickly.

“That tree’ll have to wait now, like it or not. Bessie won’t be able to haul anything, not in her condition,” he said as we walked to the house, the scent of freshly baking bread wafting out to us; just before reaching the rear porch, he looked down at me. “And do me a favor, Thomas. Don’t mention any of this to your mother. I don’t want to worry her with anything until we figure properly what happened. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded, though I was surprised with what he was asking. It wasn’t like either of my parents to keep things from each other, but out of respect I agreed. In the kitchen, my mother was just pulling a loaf from the oven and barely noticed our entrance, but the aroma of chicken and dumplings alone almost made me forget everything else.

My mother’s name was Ilda, and she was an angel of a woman. But on that day, the strain from our farmer’s life showed even on her. She leaned on the oven, wiping sweat away from her forehead.

“Surely smells good in here, Ilda,” my father said as he grabbed a bucket from near the sink, not a hint in his voice that anything was the matter. “Can’t hardly wait for a slice.”

My mother glanced at the two of us, then to the bread, frowning. “I’m afraid you’ll have to. It’s gone flat.” She gently prodded the loaf. “It’s curious, Jed. The milk was curdled this morning when Günter brought it in, and now the bread hasn’t risen.”

“Then I suppose the chicks will eat well tonight,” Pa replied wryly, though the comment failed to elicit a smile from my mother.

“Perhaps I could give it to Adah,” she said sharply, and my father instantly quieted.

Grandma Adah was my father’s mother and lived with us as far back as I’d remembered. Besides my mother, she was the sweetest woman I’d ever known, but she’d been practically bedridden since a fever the previous winter and was confined to the upstairs bedroom. Most of the caretaking burden had fallen to my mother, which hadn’t made either woman happy. Grandma Adah apparently hadn’t approved of my parent’s marriage and never missed an opportunity to tell my mother just that.

I sensed Pa felt caught in the middle, but he never said anything crosswise about Grandma Adah the way my mother did. Even that day, he simply ignored the barb she’d tossed his way and continued gathering what we’d need to treat Bessie’s wounds in silence.

That next morning, however, and the next, and the one after that, my father and I went to the barn early, only to find Bessie in exactly the same condition as on that very first day: exhausted and scratched, her mane and tail neatly braided. My father tried to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but each day I could see worry carved deeper on his face.

Until the fourth morning, what was occurring remained strictly between Pa and I, even if we didn’t speak of it beyond treating Bessie’s wounds, attempting to carry on the farming as best we could. But that day, before either one of us could get to the stalls, Günter frantically knocked at the back kitchen door while we were still eating breakfast, surprising both of us.

Günter lived with his bull mastiff Siegfried in an old cabin on the far side of the fields. He mainly kept to himself when he wasn’t tending to the hogs and chickens, though sometimes he ate supper with us. I devoured the tales he told of encountering the lynx that left a scar along his square-jawed Teutonic face or how he’d witnessed Otto Lilienthal’s hang-gliding first hand. That morning, though, his expression was nothing short of panicked.

“You must come to the barn, Mr. Whitcomb,” he said, his Bavarian accent pronouncing it Vit-cum. “There is something wrong with your horse.”

My father and I followed Günter out to the barn, and sure enough there was Bessie, once more covered in scratches and trembling with exhaustion, with braided mane and tail. Günter was nearly beside himself once we entered the stall.

“What could have done this?” He asked.

Pa shook his head. “I don’t rightly know, but it’s been happening now a few days.”

“Perhaps we should keep her in the pasture?” Günter suggested. My father agreed, and after we treated Bessie again and combed her mane straight, Günter did just that.

Out in the pasture the following morning, Bessie was stronger than she’d been in days, and the scratches on her back seemed to be healing. The next day, too, she was in good health, and Günter moved her back to the barn as it looked to storm.

The day after, though, Bessie was again weak and exhausted, covered in scratches, with those damnable braids, all of which boggled us. My father and I returned to the house, only to find my mother waiting in the kitchen, exasperated.

“The chickens have gone off their lay, Jed,” she said. “They’re giving nothing but rotten eggs. It’s been that way all week. How am I supposed to cook for us with sour milk and spoiled eggs?”

Pa didn’t answer her, and went out to the fields later
on without saying much at all. It wasn’t like my father to be moody or withdrawn, but as each day passed and things remained the same, he slipped deeper into a kind of sober moroseness, keeping to himself, even taking to eating alone instead of at the table with my mother and I. He stopped shaving too, which was unusual as he was always wellgroomed; stranger still was that his mustache and beard started coming in red when he was always fair-haired. And once, after about a week, he came into the kitchen ranting and swearing, reeking of alcohol, which he’d never done before.

One night he took Grandma Adah’s dinner up to her, and I could hear them arguing. Afterwards, my father came downstairs, mournful and apologetic to my mother and I, constantly repeating, “I’m not like him. I’ll never be like him.”

The rest of that evening he seemed more relaxed, and the next day I saw him as I did my chores, still trying to dig out the roots of the fallen oak. A few hours later, he’d seemingly given up on the task, and I found him behind the barn, drinking from a jug of moonshine. When I asked if he needed help with the tree, he spit and swore, harshly snapping at me to get along with my work. I went down to the stream and sat on the bank where I’d usually do my fishing; for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to go back home.

I waited until after supper hour to do so, explaining to my upset mother that I’d simply lost track of time.

§

That night, I lay on my bed, too tired to sleep, the day’s events coursing through my mind. The blackness of the room seemed thick with a heavy, suffocating gravity; I crawled out of bed and went to the window. But as I walked across the room, I found myself somehow in the dark, tangled woods behind our field and unsure how I got there. I thought initially I was dreaming, but the thistles and branches clawing at my skin felt too real, and I stumbled repeatedly in my confusion. I don’t know how long I staggered through the brush, but a gnawing, lonely terror grew in my belly, and it was then that I heard the singing.

I strained to listen, slowly following the voices until I saw the warm blush of a bonfire in the clearing just beyond the woods, shadows of people swaying and dancing in front of the blaze. I squatted at the base of a tree, and the more I watched, the more clearly I could tell the dancers were women, a dozen in all, and they moved, rhythmically, around a great tree, singing their chant. Though they were too far away for me to see their faces, I heard the song clearly:

“Under the full moon light we dance,

Spirits Dance We Dance,

Joining. Hands We Dance,

Joining Souls Rejoice...”

After they circled the tree again, the women slowed, and one of them stepped forward, away from the rest, her hair dark, arms held high above her head. In one hand, she held a knife, its curved blade gleaming in the firelight, and she spoke loudly into the cool night air.

“We all come from the Goddess, and to Her we shall return

Like a drop of rain flowing to the ocean

Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innana!”

“We all come from the Horned God, and to him we shall return

Like a spark of flame rising to the heavens”

“Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn

Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again!”

“The Goddess is alive and magick is afoot!”

Again and again they repeated the phrase, “Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn,” almost hypnotically, raising arms to the night, towards the tree. Somehow I felt like I was intruding in some sacred space I wasn’t meant to see. I stood but made too much noise in doing so, and the singing abruptly ceased. The woman leading the chant pointed in my direction, though there was no way she could’ve seen me. I turned to run back into the forest, but before I could, the light from the fire faded, and I was back in my bed like nothing had happened.

I was dreaming after all, I thought, and for a while I sat there, the vision of the dancers lingering, pondering who they were and why I’d seen them. Eventually, I got out of bed, but my bare feet were sticky on the hardwood; running a hand over my heel, I was shocked when my palm came back caked with mud and bits of leaves.

I said nothing of the experience to either of my parents the following morning and simply went about my chores. By the time mid-day arrived my muscles ached and I couldn’t wait to go inside and eat. When I went towards the house, however, I noticed Günter by the barn, paintbrush in one hand, daubed in red, carefully outlining a five-pointed star set within a circle upon the door.

Günter seemed as startled as I was; he dropped the brush as soon as I appeared. It was then that I saw the small mason jar in his hand filled to the brim with a dark, bittersmelling liquid.

“What are you doing, Günter?”

He stooped down, retrieving his paintbrush. “I am protecting you.”

“Protecting me?”

Günter shook his head. “Not just you. Your entire family. In Germany, the old women speak of bewitching. They say there are signs: milk that constantly curdles, leavened bread that will not rise, fresh eggs being rotten inside, animals going lame,” he gestured to the symbol on the door. “They say a pentagram wards away evil.”

I thought of the previous night and the dancing, singing women; trying to masquerade my discomfort I said, “I don’t think Pa would like you messing up the barn like that.”

“Your father needs protection above all,” he said. “He is not acting himself as of late.”

“The Goddess is alive and magick is afoot,” I whispered, remembering the chant I’d heard. When I spoke the phrase, Günter’s eyes widened.

“What did you say?”

I looked down, more uneasy than ever.

“Nothing. Just...nothing.”

Before either of us spoke further, my father walked around the corner, surprise on his face, too, that quickly soured.

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” He asked gruffly, looking at me, then Günter, and finally the symbol on the door. “And what’s this?”

Günter opened his mouth, ready to explain himself, but my father shoved him against the barn door; Günter stumbled under my father’s abrupt assault and lost his grip on the mason jar, the scarlet contents spattering on the ground.

“What is that?” My father roared. “Answer me!”

Günter stammered, but after my father pressed again, he said, “It is blood from a black hen, urine and vinegar. It lends strength to the sigil.”

My father’s newly-bearded mouth drew into a snarl, and for the first time, I was afraid of him. He gripped Günter’s shirt, growling, “You hexin’ hoodoo on me, ain’t you, you son of a bitch? I’m gonna have your hide for this--”

My father made a quick fist, punching Günter hard across the jaw. Günter grunted, but made no attempt to return the aggression. He simply raised his hands, pleading, “No! No! You do not understand! There is witchcraft here! I am trying to protect you from it!”

“Bullshit,” my father spat, smiling cruelly, hitting Günter again. That time he didn’t stop with one blow, but continued on with a series of punches, each one bloodying Günter further. When I saw he wasn’t going to quit, I ran forward, shouting.

“Pa! Stop!”

My father swung his fist back, connecting with my left cheek, and I fell back, stunned by the blow. He looked down at me, laughing, and his eyes, usually so gentle, blazed with scorn, that hateful expression twisting his face into something I didn’t recognize.

Just then my mother ran from the house. “Jed! Jed, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

My father kept grinning that queer, savage smile as she pushed him away from Günter and knelt next to me, sizing up my injury.

“That ain’t Pa!” I yelled, and my father laughed again.

“If’n I ain’t your Pa, then who am I, boy?”

My mother glared at him. “You’re not the man I married, and that’s the truth. The man I married would never strike his own, especially after all the times your father laid hands on you,” she scowled. “You always feared becoming him? Today you’ve done just that.”

My father continued laughing, but my mother pulled me up and together we walked towards the house; halfway there I repeated, “That ain’t Pa. I swear it ain’t.”

Almost as soon as we entered the kitchen, Grandma

Adah’s raspy voice called out, “Ilda! Ilda, are you in here?”

My mother exhaled a deep, frustrated breath.” Yes, I’m here. Do you need something?”

“I heard yelling. Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine, Adah. Thomas got a bit scraped up outside, is all.”

“Bring him to me.”

My mother sighed again, but nonetheless took my hand, and we ascended the stairs. Grandma Adah’s room was small and sparsely furnished; other than the bed in which she sat, tiny and fragile as a porcelain doll, a dresser with an oil lamp and a chair near the window overlooking the fields was the only adornment.

My grandmother’s shriveled face was full of concern as she ran a hand gently over my cheek. “What happened here? Did Jed do this?”

My mother hesitated before answering. “No. Not Jed.”

Grandma Adah shook her head. “I didn’t think so. He’d never be capable of that, would he?”

My mother turned to the door, hiding her face, and I could tell she was crying. “No,” she said, “He wouldn’t.”

Grandma Adah kissed me on the forehead, and I went downstairs, spending the remainder of the afternoon in my room. For a while I saw my father through the window, vigorously scrubbing off the mark Günter had painted on the barn door. He left soon afterwards, and as evening came on, I slipped outside, going to the stream again, but being there brought me no comfort, and I soon headed back.

Along the way, I stopped at Günter’ cabin. The door was ajar, and from the looks of it, the place had been hastily abandoned. Various items were scattered across the yard-a skillet, some clothes, and an old wash basin-- ones that Günter dropped as he’d fled. Even Siegfried was gone.

It was already past sunset when I returned home. My father was nowhere to be seen, and my mother was in their bedroom, door half-open. I heard quiet sobbing from within and went to my own room. Lying on the bed, I eventually succumbed to a restless, dreamless sleep.

When I woke again, it was black save for one beam of moonlight slicing its way across the floor, and unsteadily I went to the window. By my guess, it was past midnight, and all the usual surroundings of the farm--the trees, the wagons and plows, the chicken coup--were mere shadowy shapes in the dark, their familiarity rendered alien by the night.

Some movement just beyond the fencing between house and barn caught my peripheral vision; in the gloom, I couldn’t tell what it was and thought maybe it was a swaying branch. But then it moved again, and I knew it wasn’t my imagination. Something was making its way towards the barn, though from the window I was uncertain if it was man or beast. I squinted, peering into the void past the fence, but the thing blended into the blackness near the barn door, slipping from sight.

At that point I wasn’t yet afraid. After all, what I’d seen could’ve been anything--a fox or raccoon, even a coyote--but when I heard the neighs from the barn, I realized something far from ordinary was occurring, and fear danced through my body.

I should’ve gone to wake my mother, but I wanted to get to the barn as quickly as possible, that foolish, selfish confidence that only youngsters possess prompting me on, overriding any apprehension I felt as I tiptoed to the kitchen, grabbed a lantern that hung near the door, and headed outside.

By the time I reached the barn, my heart was racing, but I grasped the iron rung anyway, giving the two required tugs to jolt the door open. The lantern’s glow revealed nothing out of place inside, but there was wild commotion from Bessie’s stall. The constant neighing jangled my nerves, but I kept on. Holding my breath, I unlatched the stall door, not knowing what to expect within; a heartbeat later I found out.

Atop Bessie, clawing away at her back, was a huge coalblack cat, its eyes ablaze in the lantern’s light; its fur was stiff and glistening, its claws raking their way deeply over Bessie’s flesh, and the old mare, terrified, trembled as blood steamed down her flanks, her mane and tail neatly braided.

I screamed, dropping the lantern, and the light wavered, casting the demon-cat’s shadow on the wall behind Bessie a dozen times larger than its size. Backing up, I hit the wall opposite the stall, clumsily knocking over a row of farm tools. The clattering noise drew the cat’s attention; it looked at me with those glowing eyes, hissed and swore, bearing a mouthful of sharp teeth.

Heart pounding, I snatched a pitchfork from amid the scattered tools, jabbing the tines into the cat’s back, the momentum from my thrust so fierce the animal was knocked from Bessie’s back and pinned to the rear wall of the stall, squirming and spitting for all it was worth.

Bessie whinnied again, and for the briefest of moments I looked away. The cat, yowling, wriggled strongly enough to pry itself free of the pitchfork, and leapt--with one powerful surge--up to the barn’s second level and out the rotted hole in the roof.

I stood staring at the path the devil-cat had taken, not fully believing what I’d just seen. My hands were shaking so badly, I thought they were going to come off at the wrists. Looking over to Bessie, I marveled at how quickly her quivering subsided, and as I watched, the braids in her mane and tail slowly unraveled on their own to hang naturally once more.

Still shaken, I left the barn and hurried through the dark
to the safety of the house and my bedroom where I sat on the edge of the bed straight through sunrise, until I heard my father’s footsteps in the kitchen. Still excited by what had occurred, I threw my clothes on and rushed down the hall. My father sat at the table, oblivious to me, and I felt wary about approaching him until I realized his expression wasn’t the spiteful one I’d witnessed the previous day.

“Pa?” I asked. “Pa, is that you?”

Startled, he looked up. “Of course it’s me, Thomas.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” he replied. “I was gone a while, wasn’t I? All night, I think. But it’s the damnedest thing, because I don’t remember where I went. Like I was sleepwalking and just woke up.” He shook his head, then asked, “Are you all right, son? I feel like I’ve hurt you somehow. If I did, I’m mighty sorry.”

I wanted to tell him what happened in the night, but something stopped me from saying so, and I only nodded. “I’m fine, Pa.”

We left it at that, and as the morning advanced, my mother noticed the same as I that my father acted like his old self again; he ate breakfast with us like a starved man, took a hot bath, and shaved his beard.

Later on, though, my mother complained that Grandma Adah refused to allow her into the bedroom, and both my parents went upstairs. I spied from the steps as they knocked on the closed door to my grandmother’s room.

“Go away!” Grandma Adah shouted, sounding hoarse and frail. And no matter what my parents said or tried, the door remained tightly closed.

Around noon, Pa resolved to go to town and fetch a doctor, and the two of us went to the barn. My dread mounted as we entered, but the place was less hostile and foreboding in the daytime than the purgatory of shadows from the night before. And somehow, the oppressive atmosphere that usually hung inside the structure had lifted.

Once we reached the stall, I was astonished to see Bessie in good health, looking more robust than she had in two weeks, the scratches on her back already healing. I was expecting my father to be surprised, but he simply patted Bessie and gave her some feed.

It was late afternoon when he returned with old Doc Callahan, and together they wedged the door to Grandma Adah’s room open. Over her violent objections, the doctor examined her. Though my mother had instructed me to remain downstairs, my grandmother’s moans of discomfort sailed throughout the house, and curiosity finally got the better of me.

Slowly I crept up the steps, peeking through the stillopen door just as the doctor turned my grandmother on her side; in the room my mother gasped as three large, swollen, bleeding puncture wounds in Grandma Adah’s back came into view. Doc Callahan demanded to know what had happened, but my grandmother refused to answer, maintaining her stubborn silence until she died two days later.

Not long after Grandma Adah passed, my father and I burned the old oak tree, and things seemed to settle down on the farm. He seldom spoke of my grandmother again, and if anyone mentioned her, he’d grow quiet. He also moved all the possessions from what had been her room, and it remained empty for years after.

A long time later, when I had grown and had a family of my own, the two of us sat one autumn evening on the front porch, drinking cider and talking late into the night. During a lull in the conversation, I saw him run a hand through his thinning silver hair, look at the old barn, and say quietly, “I wonder why she did it.”

When I asked him what he meant, my father paused, then asked, “Do you remember the day Doc Callahan came to see your grandmother?”

I nodded, and he continued, “That evening I had a nightmare I’ve never forgotten, not in all these years. I dreamt you went to Bessie’s stall after midnight and that your grandmother was crouching naked atop her, raking her fingernails deep into Bessie’s back, swearin’ and spittin’ just like a cat. In my dream you took a pitchfork and stabbed it into my mother’s back to get her off Bessie. It didn’t make any sense at the time, but with what Doc Callahan discovered...”

He pointed out to the cornfield then. “It was that damn old oak, son. I don’t know how, but she was trying to hurt Bessie so we couldn’t remove that tree. It had some sort of witchin’ power to it, that old oak, and she was tryin’ to use it to bring my father back. That’s what she wanted, Thomas. She wanted me to be him, for him to live again in my body, to be reborn inside of me so she could have him back. I could feel the pull of it sometimes, like I wasn’t in control of myself, like I was becoming my father, and I could even hear him speaking to me. ‘Hoof to horn,’ he’d say, ‘All that dies shall be reborn.’ And she would’ve succeeded, too, if that storm hadn’t chanced to knock that damn tree down and I tried to remove it. It forced her hand before the stars were lined up just proper.”

He never spoke more about it, and died himself a few months later. I didn’t tell him or anyone about my experience in the barn, nor did I ever speak of the fact that when I saw the circle of witches that night from the woods, I recognized Grandma Adah’s voice leading their chants around the old tree while they danced.

Exposed to the weird worlds of horror and science fiction as a boy, Damascus Mincemeyer has been ruined ever since. He’s now a writer and artist of various strangeness and has had stories published (or soon-to-be published) in the anthologies Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn, Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles  (both from Tyche Books), Bikers Vs The Undead, Psycho Holiday, Monsters Vs Nazis (Deadman’s Tome Publishing, books for which he also provided cover art), Hell’s Empire (Ulthar Press), Crash Code (Blood Bound Books), the Sirens Call ezine, and the magazines Gallows Hill and StoryHack. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, and can usually be found lurking about on Twitter @DamascusUndead.

TRESPASSER

RENEE MILLER

“Hey, is there anything you recommend for fun around here?” Carly asked the man at the desk. “Preferably a nonalcoholic activity. I already drank the mini-bar, and my head is still mad about it.”

“What kind of thing you looking for?” he asked, glancing briefly from the computer screen. He was younger than her, probably mid-twenties, with caramel skin and deep, dark brown eyes. If she wasn’t still nursing the gaping wound that getting dumped left behind, she might flirt a little. He was too young anyway, and way too hillbilly. She’d chosen Vic because he provided her with the life she wanted. A hotel clerk definitely couldn’t do that.

Carly shrugged. “I was hoping to do something unusual. I noticed there’s a lot of woodland around here. Lots of trails to hike, maybe?”

He chuckled. “Hiking isn’t an unusual activity in these parts.”

“Well I don’t usually…” Carly stopped herself. No more explaining or apologizing. Just go for what she wanted and fuck the rest of the world. That’s how she’d lived her life before Vic. Time to get her old self back. “I saw this,” she handed him the pamphlet and pointed to the paragraph about Dudleytown. “I Googled it and came across the Dark Forest Entry Association.”

“And?” he was back to staring at his computer screen. He might be hot, but that didn’t excuse being utterly rude. She glanced at his name tag. “Joel,” would be getting a few lines when she filled out the guest feedback card in her room.

“Is it true you can’t get in there?” she asked. “Not even on an approved trail?”

“Well, they don’t like folks trespassing on their land, but I think they still have a tour in the summer.”

“It’s October.”

“Right,” he frowned. “Could still have tours. It’s been mild, so you never know.”

“Who do I contact?”

“For what?”

She sighed. “The tour?”

“Oh, uh, go on down to the library. They have
information on all that stuff.”

She didn’t want to be part of a tour, but smiled anyway.

“Is the legend true?”

“What legend?”

“The one about Dudleytown being cursed. Did everyone who lived there go crazy?”

“Nah,” he said. “Some of them died. Some moved away.”

“I read they were killed or killed themselves. Some girl went missing. They never found her body, I heard.”

“Someone got lost in the mountains a few years back, but it wasn’t some curse. Just stupidity. They found her body. She got mauled by a bear.”

“Oh.”

“And some died of natural causes, just like any place you go. You know how people are. Couple of folks lost their shit, yeah, but anyone living in the sticks like that’s bound to go a little nutty, you get me?”

“But the whole town just up and left.”

“Not exactly. Some folks left, sure, but not all at once. Actually, some still live there. The spot where the town was is pretty isolated. Hard to make a go of it when you’re surrounded by mountains and hills. You’ll see if you go on the tour. I’d never want to live out there.”

“So, it’s not cursed?”

“Maybe it is, probably isn’t. I’ve been out there once or twice. Just a bunch of bones and some crumbling houses.

Nothing too scary.”

“Bones?”

“I was talking metaphorically. I mean bones of buildings and the like.”

“Thanks.”

“And ma’am,” he said.

She flinched at his use of that word. She was hardly a ma’am yet. “What?”

“Don’t go down there on your own. If there’s no tour, go somewhere else. I’m serious when I say they don’t like trespassers. Folks have destroyed shit up there and they aren’t pleased about it, so they don’t play around.”

“They’ll shoot me?”

“Hardly, but they won’t hesitate to have you arrested.”

“I see.” She folded the pamphlet and tucked it in her pocket. “If I were to go on a hike, say somewhere else, do you know what I should take with me? I’m new to this stuff.”

Finally, he looked up again. “Sure do. I recommend you drive up to the park. It’s in that pamphlet too. You can camp there if you like, but the hike is the main attraction.

Beautiful spot with some sweet trails.”

“Sweet trails?”

He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “Change those shoes. Store down the road’s got proper gear as far as that goes. Need boots, a warm coat, and some heavy socks.

Don’t want to get a tick, right?”

“Definitely not.”

“And get yourself an emergency kit, in case you get lost. Cell phones get screwy on some of those mountain trails, so take some flares to let folks know you’re up there if you get lost. Don’t go too far in. Bears and shit, you get me?” She nodded. Bears… and shit. Wonderful.

“I’d be more worried about the mountain lions, though, depending on where you go. Been a few wolverine sightings too. Don’t want to fuck with those assholes. Trust me.”

“I don’t plan on going into the mountains.”

“Well, just in case, the hardware store down the way’s got bear spray. Really, it’s just pepper spray, but might be wise to get some. Any animal will think twice with a face full of that. It’d at least give you time to run.”

She had pepper spray in her purse. The perks of being a city girl. “Maybe I should get a gun.”

His eyes widened for a second. “You used a gun before?”

“No.”

“Then a gun is more harm than good. Probably end up shooting yourself or some other poor bastard out for a hike.”

“I was just kidding,” she said. “But thanks for your help. I’ll probably be out for the remainder of the day.”

“Make sure you check in when you get back,” he said with a weak smile. “Or I’ll have to send a search party out for you. I don’t want to have to do that.”

“Will do.”

§

Carly changed her shoes, grabbed a few supplies, and drove out to the old wooden gate pictured in the pamphlet. A sign, “Village Closed,” was nailed to the top, and a heavy chain with a padlock ensured no one could open it and just walk through.

She parked her car on the side of the road and walked to the gate. The woods granted entry to the ill-fated town, which was, according to the pamphlet, surrounded by mountains on three sides.  She took one last look around her, and climbed over the fence next to the gate. It took a bit of maneuvering, and a long tear in her jeans, but she made it over the top without injury. Leaves crunched beneath her booted feet, and she heard the occasional bird chirping. She followed overgrown railroad tracks until she found an old sign threatening trespassers with prosecution.

Unlike previous visitors, she didn’t plan to disrespect anyone or leave any garbage. She just wanted to explore, maybe burn the pile of photos and keepsakes she’d brought with her. One final goodbye to Vic and his pompous rich ass.

Carly took out her phone, pulled up the GPS app, and got her bearings. It directed her toward a dense growth of evergreen trees and bushes. Caution was her default setting, so it took a bit to convince herself to keep going despite the sign and the uneasy feeling in her gut, but she did it. She kept walking. As she passed through the edge of the tree line, it seemed as though the canopy swallowed the light. She breathed the moldy scent of decaying leaves and wet soil and pushed on. Inevitably, she’d have to come to a clearing, and the sunlight would return.

§

She hiked through the woods for about two hours without seeing a single sign of life. No ruins. No fences. Not even animal tracks. She opened the GPS app to figure out where she was and noticed she had no service. Couldn’t even get an internet connection to use the GPS. She looked up. The canopy was so dense, she could only make out tiny bits of the sky. Probably too thick for any signals to find their way in or out.

“Shit.” Carly put the phone in her pocket. She could turn back. Probably the smart thing to do. It seemed like a wasted day, though, to just give up. She had to be close.

Quieting the warnings of her common sense, she continued walking upward through the trees and over rocky patches, under low branches and through prickly bushes, until, finally, she climbed to the top of a hill and the unending darkness of the woods opened up to allow thick beams of sunlight through.

Large grey stones had been tucked into the hillside, probably an old retaining wall. It provided a comfortable, if slightly damp perch for her to rest her tired legs. She sat on the least mossy patch she could find and lifted her face to the sky. Her toes tingled from the cold, and her knuckles ached. Should’ve worn gloves. October wasn’t the ideal time of year to be hiking in Connecticut. Carly knew it, yet, here she was, lost, freezing and regretting the decision to hike alone.

She’d never been to the Appalachians, but when they offered a free trip at work, part of a series of selfimprovement seminars H.R. wanted everyone to “benefit” from, she volunteered to go. There were supposed to be five of them, but her coworkers cancelled for various bullshit reasons. The seminar had been canceled after day two, because the guy running it had a heart attack, but her boss said the room was paid to the end of the week and they’d been issued a refund, so she should stay the remainder of the week and enjoy the unexpected vacation.

On day three she stayed in bed, thinking about Vic, and how things went so bad. She’d been everything he wanted. All she asked was that he take care of her in return. He said she was too needy and selfish. Wanted a break. Now his insistence that she keep her job made sense. He was never in it for the long haul. “Good luck finding someone who’ll want to fuck your sagging ass,” she’d said. “I faked every orgasm,” were her final words before she slammed the door and stormed away from his house. And that was that.

On day four, regret for overreacting to his words sank in, and she got drunk. Then she saw the legend in that pamphlet at the hotel and made a spontaneous decision. Very unlike her. Wasn’t the point of this trip to step outside her comfort zone and be someone else for a while? Part of her hoped to find someone new, but the hotel seemed to host single women and old married couples exclusively. Not one rich guy in the bunch either.

She watched the sun set against the rich reds, oranges, yellows, and greens of the landscape beneath her rocky perch. Yes, it was beautiful, but she’d enjoy it more if she had a clue where she was. It would drop to almost freezing once the sun was gone. The forecast just got worse for the rest of the week. At least she’d thought to check that before leaving on this little adventure.

Beneath her, the remains of a crumbling foundation beckoned. Was this Dudleytown? Had she finally made it, or had she gone off course and ended up in some other abandoned property in the woods? It felt like she’d hiked uphill for ages. Maybe she was in the damn mountains now, and a bear or a cougar would put her out of her misery. That’d be a terrible way to go.

In the far corner of the lot, a shed remained standing. Its wooden walls were warped, and small holes littered the roof, but it looked sturdy enough to keep out the cold. She could camp there for the night and head out in the morning. It’d be easier to get her bearings when the sun was up.

Inside the shed, the bitter smell of decay overwhelmed her. The fading light shone through a tiny window, no longer protected by glass. It lit enough of the floor for Carly to see leaves and a couple of small animal carcasses. Must’ve gotten trapped inside somehow.

Cobwebs clung to every corner and surface. A table still sat against the back wall. Workbench, probably. On top, two dusty mugs and a metal coffee pot. Strangely, they didn’t have as much dust as the table top. Carly didn’t want to overthink that fact. She probably wasn’t the first person to sneak into this place, and wouldn’t be the last.

Using the flashlight on her phone, she scanned the rest of the shed. She had few fears, but spiders were top of that small list. While she didn’t see any, that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking in the corners, waiting to crawl into her ears or up her nose. She shivered at the thought.

As she lowered the phone, a bit of color caught her eye. Carly stepped back. On the floor, under the layer of dust, dirt and dead animals, someone had sprayed red paint in a circle. She kicked as much of the litter away from the graffiti as she could. Within the red circle she uncovered the image of a creature with a man’s head and torso, and the legs and hindquarters of a goat. Its massive horns curled against its temples, and around it, in the shape of a hexagon, they’d drawn several symbols. Patches of blood indicated that the dead animals had probably lain near or on the symbols at some point.

“Christ,” she whispered. Nice of whoever was here last to leave something to scare the bejesus out of the next person. Forcing her fear aside, she lowered her backpack to the floor. While camping in this creepy slice of hell wasn’t part of the plan, she had no choice. Thank God she’d asked the hotel clerk about hiking gear. Because of his suggestion, she’d taken an emergency kit, with a foil blanket, flares and some food, from the trunk of her rental car.

She pulled out the kit, unwrapped the blanket, and sat on the goat thing’s left horn. Pulling the blanket around her shoulders, she leaned against the table leg and closed her eyes.

§

Despite the discomfort of sitting on a dirty floor, sleep came quickly. She was jolted awake by something scratching at the door. Carly opened her eyes, forgetting for a moment where she was. Then it all came back.

She held her breath. The scratches sounded furious, but not powerful. Something small. A raccoon maybe. She could handle one of those. Releasing the air in her lungs slowly, she reached into her pack and felt around for the can of pepper spray.

“Sorry,” she whispered to the unseen creature on the other side of the door. “But it’s me or you.”

The scratching stopped. For several seconds, all sound disappeared and then something screamed. Carly’s bladder threatened to let go as fear stabbed her insides with its sharp claws. Should’ve peed outside before she went to sleep. Maybe that would’ve kept whatever was out there away. Marked her territory, so to speak.

Another scream and then a growl. A slick, sloshing sound and then a… chuckle?

Animals didn’t laugh.

“Fuck,” she whispered, but didn’t rise. Couldn’t. All she could manage was to hold the pepper spray in front of her and wish it was a gun.

Silence returned. Carly waited, pepper spray held high, until the sun lit the window once more and her arms shook from the hours of exertion forced on them. Finally, she lowered the can and let herself relax. Just animals doing what animals do; killing each other. She must’ve imagined the laughter.

Her thighs ached from sitting too long in one position. Carly pushed them out in front of her. Leaning forward, she touched her toes to stretch the muscles and then stood slowly. Her right foot tingled a bit, but the ache in her muscles slowly subsided. As she folded the blanket and stuffed it back into her pack, she listened for more signs of animals attacking animals, but heard nothing. Not even a bird chirping. Should hear at least one bird, shouldn’t she? Maybe whatever killed the thing scratching at the door was still out there.

Carly didn’t replace the pepper spray in the pack. Instead, she held onto it while she opened the door. Blood soaked the leaves beneath the threshold. She stepped back and saw it’d sprayed up the bottom of the door as well. No carcass, though. Whatever had killed the thing must have carried it off.

Better get the hell out of these woods. She stepped outside, can of pepper spray held high, just in case, and walked toward the crumbling retaining wall she’d sat on the night before. Not a single sound interrupted the quiet morning. The silence was unnerving to say the least.

If she walked back the way she came, going downhill instead of up, she should reach the road eventually. Hopefully, the hotel clerk wasn’t joking about sending out that search party. She might get arrested for trespassing, but at least she wouldn’t spend another night out there. While somewhat proud of herself for doing something new, Carly felt a little foolish. Imagine, coming out into the woods alone, just because some brochure suggested they were haunted. Of all the stupid shit…

A low growl interrupted her thoughts. She saw nothing. No movement. No shadows. Not even the rustling of leaves. The growl stopped. Carly walked toward the retaining wall without looking back. Whatever it was wouldn’t stay away long. If she acted normal, calm, maybe it’d lose interest in her.

She managed to climb up the incline and walk into the trees before she heard the first footsteps behind her. She resisted the instinct to look over her shoulder and walked faster.

Something touched her shoulder. It was light, barely a caress, but it was enough to force her legs into a run.

Paying no attention to direction, she stumbled through the dense woods blindly. Branches stung her cheeks, tangled in her hair, ripping out what felt like large clumps, but she kept running until she tripped over a stump hidden beneath the debris on the ground.

Her knees took the brunt of the fall. She put her hands out to avoid getting a mouthful of dirt, scraping her palms badly enough for blood to wet her skin. Stunned, but still in flight mode, she struggled to stand. Her left ankle burned. It refused to support her weight. Limping, Carly kept moving forward. Her lungs ached, her legs pleaded with her to stop, and it felt like she barely gained ground anymore. Finally, she gave up, collapsed and rolled onto her back.

Whatever chased her was familiar with the woods, and in far better shape. Fuck it. She still held the can of pepper spray. Squeezing it tightly, Carly took a steadying breath before lifting her head to see her pursuer. If this is how she died, she’d go down fighting.

Nothing.

No one.

She still heard the steps, though. Crunching over the leaves, so close, but somehow, not close enough to reveal what or who it was. Her heart pounded against her chest, almost like it was urging her to get up, to keep running, but the rest of her body refused to move.

The air thickened. She smelled the sweet dampness of the leaves and soil, the subtle hints of pine and cedar from the trees, and her own fear. It cast a sour note on the otherwise pleasant odors. She laid back, stared up at the canopy above, and for the first time since she was a child, Carly prayed.

The dim light seemed to fade as she pleaded for rescue or relief; whatever that meant. A shadow fell over her. She closed her eyes. Let it come. Whatever it was, let it do what it came to do so she could rest. God, she was so tired. Not even twenty-four hours lost in the woods and she was finished. Vic was right. She was pathetic and selfish.

A burning started in her stomach and then something touched her face. An acrid odor burned her nose. Carly squeezed her eyes closed, lifted the can of spray, and said one last prayer before pressing the trigger.

No scream. No cursing. Silence. The light returned. She couldn’t open her eyes, though. An invisible fog fell on her, filling her mind and pushing her body into the ground. Her arm was too heavy. She lowered it and drifted on a cloud of exhaustion.

Whatever pursued her must have killed her. Death wasn’t so bad, she decided.

§

Carly woke to almost total darkness. She sat up, felt around for her pack, but it was gone. So were her coat and her boots. The flares, the food, the emergency kit, and her precious pepper spray. All gone as well. The bottom of her sweater was torn right up to her chest. She touched the fabric and winced. Her belly stung as the wool moved over it. Parting the edges gently, Carly found it difficult to breathe. On her stomach, just below her bra, someone had carved a pentagram.

What the actual fuck?

An animal wouldn’t do that. It might mess with her stuff, maybe destroy the items, maybe, but it wouldn’t take off with them and it definitely wouldn’t carve satanic symbols in someone’s stomach.

And how had she slept through that? She remembered something touching her face, and that awful smell… maybe they drugged her.

She dragged herself up. Something pressed against her arm. She reached for it and touched cold plastic. Relief made her muscles liquify. She almost let herself lay down again, but didn’t. She had her phone. No service, but it’d still help her get the fuck out of these woods.

Carly picked it up, turned on the flashlight and took a ragged breath before panic settled firmly in her belly.

Around her, she saw several small lumps. Carcasses. The fur was unmistakable. The horrific grimaces frozen on their faces as death claimed them would definitely haunt her dreams forever. Something had torn each one open at the belly, strewn its insides around it, and left it there, circling her body, as though part of a ritual.

“Get out,” a voice whispered.

Carly scrambled to her feet. Her ankle still ached, but the pain was less intense than before. Maybe it was just a sprain. Small mercies, she supposed. As she steadied herself, a shadow emerged. It was much taller than her five feet, six inches, and thin. The head, though, looked odd.

Swallowing, Carly lifted her phone, and the light revealed an elongated skull with long, curving horns on either side. She didn’t even have enough air in her lungs to scream. Instead, she backed away. “Who the fuck are you?” “Get out,” it repeated.

What kind of sick fuck dressed like a goddamn… she didn’t know what he was dressed as. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to fuck with her anymore.

“I’d like to leave,” she said. “But I don’t know where I am.”

The figure pointed to her right. “Go.”

“Thanks.” She started to go left. Like she’d trust his directions.

“Go.”

“No worries there, buddy. I’m going.”

She kept walking, but anger boiled in her belly. As she moved, she recalled the articles she’d read during her Google search of the area. The Dark Forest so-and-so didn’t like trespassers. They usually used legal maneuvers to punish anyone who ignored the warnings and came on their land. They didn’t attack them and scare the shit out of them.

But there was that one girl…

She turned. The figure still stood there, arm raised, pointing toward the way out. “Wait. You killed those poor animals just to scare me? What kind of sick fuck does that? You could’ve just called the cops. Had me arrested.”

“Go,” it said. “Now.”

“No.”

There. She did something else she’d never done with Vic; stood up for herself.

The figure moved. She saw an arm, but it moved so fast, she didn’t have time to discern its intention. Something struck her side. It felt like a punch, but the burning sensation that followed was something she’d never experienced. Her skin felt hot and wet, but a chill spread over the rest of her body. Carly looked down. A short, thin piece of wood stuck out of her side. A knife? Its blade was firmly embedded in her flesh.

“Did you just…?”

The figure advanced. “Go.”

Carly didn’t argue this time. Clearly the guy was a fucking lunatic.

She ran.

§

Time flipped on itself. It turned inside out, slid sideways, and then darted from her grasp. She had no idea how long she ran, how many times she stumbled, or how much blood she lost from the wound in her side. The knife was still in there. She held it in place as she fled, fearful that if it came dislodged, she’d bleed out and die.

Now and then, the figure would emerge and point her in a new direction. Was he sending her in circles? Did he truly want her to leave or was he fucking with her? No way to know unless he tried to kill her, she supposed.

She tried to turn back when she realized she was moving upward, which meant she must be going back toward the mountains, but the figure appeared in front of her, pointing the other way. She zig-zagged, attempting to run around it, but got a branch to the head for her efforts. It dragged her to her feet and shoved her the other direction.

“Go,” it said.

If she wasn’t so weak, Carly told herself she’d kick its ass. She resumed running, finally eluding the figure and going down instead of up. Her lungs burned, and her feet were numb. She wondered how long she could do this and contemplated giving up when she saw the gate.

Sobbing, Carly clumsily dragged herself over the top. The knife had fallen out at some point, and the hole in her side gushed fresh, warm blood. She ignored it. Kept running. As she reached the other side of the fence, she realized her rental car was gone.

The masked man stood at the gate, pointing down the laneway. Carly growled, but didn’t argue. She pushed on. When she got to town, she’d call the cops on the crazy fucker. Have him arrested for being a lunatic. Trespassing or not, no one stabs someone or terrorizes them like this.

She saw the road, heard vehicles passing, and risked turning around.

The hotel clerk stood behind her. He wasn’t wearing a mask or robe, but there was no way he was there by coincidence. He must’ve been the masked figure.

“You fucking son of a bitch,” she whispered.

He frowned. “I said I’d come looking for you. Are you okay?”

“You fucking stabbed me.”

“You’re hysterical. Come here, let me help you.”

“I’ll have you arrested.” Carly walked backward as she gave him what-for. “All I did was get lost in your stupid forest. I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You trespassed, but that isn’t important. We need to get you somewhere warm. You must be hungry.”

“You clubbed me in the face!” How dare he look so innocent. It had to be him. Still, doubt cooled her anger as a look of utter confusion crossed his face.”

“I’m here to help you,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back to the hotel.”

He held out his hand. Carly’s anger returned when she saw red streaks along his wrist. It was him.

“You think I’m getting in a car with you after you cut me up and fucking hit me with a club? You really are nuts.”

“You’re going to get hurt. Please, just calm down and let me take you back.”

She kept moving backward. Felt the ground shift from
soil to packed gravel. Heard the sound of a large truck moving toward her. Finally, the road. “When they see this hole in my—”

§

Joel hid in the trees behind the gate. The robe made his neck itch, and the mask had become heavy, pressing uncomfortably over the bridge of his nose. He didn’t dare take it off, though.

The troopers, at least a dozen, walked the scene around the body under the tarp. He’d parked her car a mile up the road. They hadn’t found it yet. He could hear their radios as well as their theories about what happened. They seemed to settle on “shock” and “hysteria” causing her to run out of the woods and in front of the truck.

They didn’t suspect foul play, which was good, but her actions left him in a bind. Mother had counted on him. Trusted him. They’d chosen him to provide the most important part of the Festival, and he’d failed miserably.

He took out his cell phone and pulled up the only contact in his list. It rang twice.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Sorry, Mother, but it got away.”

“How?”

“Tried to chase it into the hole, but it panicked. Went right to the road.”

A sigh. “Were you playing again? I warned you, Joel.”

“Just a little. I’m sorry.”

“Drug it. Bring it home. That’s all you had to do.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t cross through the Dark Forest Entry did you?”

He didn’t want to tell her, but if they saw him, they would go right to the Council, and it’d be worse for him if she found out he lied. “I did, but I had no choice. She got turned around, and I had to pursue her. No one saw me. I promise.”

“I’d bet that’s not true. They’re everywhere.” A crackling on the line and then the sound of banging. She was still working on the cross, which now had nothing to adorn it. “I’ll deal with them. You need to figure out what we’re going to use as the centerpiece for the Festival now that you’ve lost the one we agreed on.”

“I can find another.”

“You better. Full moon is coming in three days. You know what happens if the hunter doesn’t return with a prize.”

She ended the call. Joel tucked the phone back into his pocket. There were two other outsiders staying at the hotel. One had gone hiking every day of her stay. He’d put a pamphlet in her room. Hopefully, she was as curious about a good ghost story as the others. If not, they’d make him the centerpiece this year, and he’d never hunt again.

Renee Miller is a Canadian author from Tweed, Ontario. She unsuccessfully battles an addiction to cake and potato chips, and indulges in celebrity fantasies everyone says they’re not interested in hearing about. She writes comedy, horror, and erotica (sometimes all at once), and has published independently and with publications such as DarkFuse Magazine, Broadswords and Blasters, Deadman’s Tome, Unnerving Magazine and Hindered Souls Press.

HEMLOCK WINDS

SHAWN LACHANCE

My brother Alan was a kind and gentle man. He loved nothing in this world more than Julia.

Then after she died, he didn’t seem to have one.

The brother I grew up with started to disappear. He was once the master of dark humor and could make you laugh with the most self-deprecating jokes that have ever been told. That sharp, acerbic wit? He’d lost that. I still remember him coming over for dinners or calling me up randomly at night to tell me about his hellish days at work. His spark was completely gone. The man with a smile that could brighten even the darkest day was replaced by a husk. I missed my brother. I loved my brother.

He and Julia had planned on hiking the Appalachian trail before she got sick. It was to be one of many grand adventures together. But a few months after she passed on, I started prodding him to take the trip by himself.

“Go on the trip, Ally. It’ll be good for you.”

It came from a place of love. I was missing Alan. Every time he’d call, I’d just say it over and over again:

“Go on the trip, Ally.”

One day he finally agreed to do it. I was ecstatic and deep down, I thought he was too. This is something that had been in his head for years. He was so lost without Julia, I really believed being out on the trail would be good for him. He’d have time to be truly alone with his thoughts. He could grieve properly and he could enjoy the wildlife. He loved animals.

My God.

I bought him a journal and gave it to him with the promise that he’d write as often as he could. We would read it when he got back, and then bring it to Julia’s gravesite.

When it came back to me, I didn’t want to know.

I’ve had this journal for close to two years, buried in a box in the basement. Something happened today that made me take it out and finally read it. What follows are excerpts from that journal.

“Go on the trip, Ally”

“Ok…”

I’m so sorry Ally. Laura “Canoe” Williams

§

July 13th 2018

It’s hot as hell today, but I’m here. You finally managed to convince me to take the trip. I think you’re right though, I do deserve it. I’m waiting outside the trail right now for my permit to be checked, and then it’s two months of solitude on the beautiful Appalachian Trail.

Still not entirely sure why I finally agreed to do this, but I’m here. I’m even using the journal you bought me, just like I promised you I would. I’ll try to fill it up before I’m done in here and hand it to you when you pick me up. Maybe you’ll find it interesting. Maybe you’ll just think “Jesus, brother dear, you are a dull, dull man”. Just remember, you asked for this.

I gotta say though, it’s eerily calm out here. Clear blue sky. No breeze. The birdsongs are beautiful. She’d have loved it. Every time we went camping, the birds were always the first thing she’d notice. “Hear that? That’s a warbler”. I guess since she’s not around to refute this, I can finally tell somebody. It was never a warbler. Ever. She had no idea, but she loved their songs so much that in her heart, it had to be warblers. I miss her.

There was an old man going door to door at the motel this morning selling little Sparrow dolls. Felt sorry for him so I bought one. Named him Sebastian. At least I won’t be fully alone on the trip. I won’t start talking to him or anything like that. Then again, maybe I will. If I’m gonna be alone for two months, I guess I could do worse than having little Sebastian to talk to.

Trail Warden or whatever the hell he is just got here. I’ll write more tonight

July 13th 2018

This is more exhausting than I had planned for. I spent three months working out to get in shape for this. I altered my diet drastically, but all of that goes out the fucking window once you get into the forest and it’s 36 degrees out. Half an hour in and I was covered from head to toe in sweat.

Stepped in a puddle while laughing at a joke and finished the day off with wet feet. Not ideal. I can do this though. I know I can. Met a young couple doing the trip together and they seem nice enough. They’re camping next to me. It’s nice to have living company, and they’re quiet.

The birds are loud tonight. Frantic. Sounds like sparrows, but I’m not sure. I imagine it makes Sebastian happy to hear his kind. Yes, I’m anthropomorphising a stuffed toy bird and you can’t stop me. Not knowing what they are makes me think I probably should have done a bit more research on the wildlife. I’ll ask the couple tomorrow if they know. Maybe they’re warblers.

My legs are on fire, Canoe. It’s nice to just lay down on the air mattress and relax. Definitely packed too much stuff. Ah well. Onward and upwards.

July 14th 2018

Didn’t sleep well last night. Made for tough walking. Feet are numb. Managed to cut up my legs on some plants trying to take a piss. Stings like a bastard.

The nice couple had some salve for the wounds, so that
was nice. Their names are Peter and David. David is a policy analyst in the Government. Peter is a prison guard. I asked Peter about a thousand questions about his job, and it’s so fascinating. He’s a very cool dude. David jokingly asked me if I had any questions about his job, and I froze for a solid six seconds. The best I could mutter was “Uhhh…do…do you like it?” He laughed.

I cooked them some of the food I brought, and they were kind enough to finish it even though it was trash. You’d like them, Canoe.

We talked about our lives and sports. Peter is also a Mariners fan, so we talked about Ichiro for a solid twenty minutes. David was a trooper and just sad nodding along. His sport is hockey, but he likes the Leafs so I had nothing to say to him.

Clouds are rolling in and it feels like it’s going to rain. Gonna try to get some sleep now. Never realized how noisy the forest is. Oh, they had no idea what the birds were either, but they don’t seem as bothered by the noises as I am. Lucky bastards.

July 17th 2018

Poured rain all day. Thunderstorms moved in around 5 a.m. We just hunkered in place. No sense moving on and risking an injury. Ah well. Rain means I don’t have to waste water. Can also use it to bathe. It’s only been a few days, but I’m starting to smell. Did you need to know that? No. Do I regret writing it down for you to read later? Also no.

Thought about her a lot today. She’d have found a way to put a spin on this. At the very least, we could have read together. I remember one camping trip we went on, I swear we must have finished four or five books each. Waking up each morning to make coffee and spending the hot afternoons in the tent reading. Some of the happiest moments of my life.

Went to check on Peter and David, gave them an extra blanket I was carrying. Gotta get the weight of this pack down.

Some weird animal came to the tent last night; I didn’t get a chance to see what it was. It just came to the entrance and sat there for a few minutes breathing heavily. I think it was a bear cub? Didn’t wanna disturb it, whatever it was. Hopefully the white noise of the rain cancels out the birds. It was beautiful at first, but now it’s just tiring. I’ll be happy to rest my legs.

Sebastian says hello.

July 18th 2018

Memory triggers have always fascinated me. The weirdest things will just excavate thoughts. Saw something moving in the trees but couldn’t make out what it was. Made me think of Ents. She loved the Ents. I hope she’s in a place where the trees are walking and talking. That also got me thinking of Tolkien. I remember reading about Tolkien during the war. The Somme. Hell. Tried telling Peter and David about The Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy. They were having none of it. Oh well. NOT EVERYBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT WWI ALAN! Bunch of savages.

I’m kidding. They pretended to listen for about half an hour, which is more than I probably would have if they were talking about software development life cycle or something like that. No animal sightings last night, which is always a plus.

July 18th

I’m not done with this WWI thing. I think what fascinates me so much about it is the unknowable terror. The carnage. The fear and horror. There will never be battles like that again. Old World tactics meeting New World technology. We’ll never see that again. Movies and games don’t get it right. Maybe it’s for the best. Go to bed Alan. Nobody cares.

July 19th

Peter and David left this morning. They went into a trail town to restock, and I decided to keep traveling. I’ll miss the comfort of having other people around at night.

The night can be terrifying. Anybody who tells you otherwise is a god-damned liar. Not a good one either. You are isolated from everything, and you feel it. When you’re alone, the cold seems colder, and the dark seems darker. There are animals who could eat you and bugs that could probably kill you if they had the wherewithal to get together and organize properly. Maybe start a union. A human eating union. God I’m tired.

I’m feeling a little better since I started this journey though. Been cracking jokes again. Sometimes to Peter and David. Sometimes to the trees. Sometimes to a Sebastian. He makes for a perfect sounding board at night. It feels nice.

It’s been nice to write again too. Haven’t really done it since… well. Since that day. No point. Now I get to ramble on and on about wet feet and fantasy creatures. You’re gonna love this Canoe. I swear I’ll try to make it more interesting from here on out. (This is a lie and we know it).

July 19th

It’s almost too quiet without them. Have you ever noticed how the wind sounds like whispering sometimes? God. Learn some words at least. Actually don’t. Nobody needs that in their life. Just lying down alone in a tent that’s big enough for five people and hearing words gently whispered on the outside. Nope. No thank you.

Woke up this morning and my feet and back were cut up pretty badly. Can’t explain how. I’m using a pretty good air mattress, and my hikers are top quality. Only had the wet feet once and managed to properly dry everything out that night. Back stings pretty badly, but my feet should be ok. I wrapped them up and luckily still had some salve left over that Peter and David left me.

Gonna try and get some sleep now. Write more tomorrow.

July 24th

Sorry Canoe. Haven’t written in a few days. Not much has happened. Rained a lot. I’m so tired of the rain. Haven’t been sleeping very much either. Probably lack of food. I’m trying to eat... Just… not hungry all the time. Too tired. Still alone. I don’t feel alone though. Not with Sebastian here.

Saw a deer last night. It was stranger than any deer I’ve ever seen though. It was all white. Are albino deers a thing? Deers? Deer? When you’re reading this, please tell me, the Linguistics and Communications major, what the plural for Deer is because I can’t god-damn remember at the moment. It’s afternoon and since I’m unable to sleep, I just walked all night, which was stupid because I think I lost the trail? This place looks so familiar though. I’m gonna take a nap now. I’ll write more when I wake up.

July 24th

Woke up outside the tent. At least the stars were beautiful. Ate some dinner. Now I’m back in the tent. It’s cold. That’s another thing they don’t tell you. How unbelievably cold it gets at night in the woods. I must be near some water. I hope I’m near some water. Could use another bath.

The waking up outside thing scares me. I think that’s where all the cuts and scrapes on my back are from. Must have been doing it for a while.

When I was walking today, I thought I saw my bear cub friend in a heavily wooded part. But this thing was too thin to be a bear. Had an ursine face, that much I’m sure of, but the rest of it seemed wrong. Probably just a trick of the shadows.

July 25th

Just woke up to the sound of rummaging outside. Something is rooting around in my firepit. Too afraid to go check it out. Whatever it is, it sounds large. Probably the bear cub. I wish it’d leave me alone. I’ll try to get back to sleep, but my heart is racing and the birds just will not shut up. I used to love the sounds of birds singing. Now it is a never ending, waking nightmare. It’s like tinnitus, but instead of a constant hum, it’s warbles, chirps and squeaks. Feels like they’re louder when the bear is here, but that can’t be right.

Going back to bed. Write more tomorrow.

July 25th

I am so tired. So very tired. Woke up outside the tent again which… I’m starting to get used to at this point. It’s becoming the least of my worries because the most bizarre part was the tent wasn’t where I left it. I will swear to all the Gods that I did not move the tent, but alas, here we are. It was about a mile back on what passes for trails and paths here. At some point between my last entry and waking up, I walked a mile completely naked and didn’t notice.

Speaking of, that’s why this place looks so familiar. I keep dragging the tent back to this one little clearing. Just never really noticed before now. I need more sleep. Good sleep. Restful sleep. Actual for real fucking sleep.

July 2? th

I don’t know what day it is. I think it’s the 27th but I can’t be sure. The last few days are a blur. It feels like I’m in a waking dream. The colors are starting to run together, and my vision is a little foggy. It always feels dark out, no matter what time of day it is. Can’t make out the sky.

Sebastian listened to me talk for hours last night about Passchendaele. He’s a good companion. Speaking of, it’s really muddy here. Seeped through my boots and coated my socks. Is there a worse feeling on this planet than wet, muddy feet? I doubt it.

I think my pack is still too heavy, even though I left a bunch of the clothing I packed behind. It’s really starting to bother the cuts on my back. Straps are also starting to cut into my shoulders. I hope whoever finds the clothing can make use of it all. Maybe it’ll be a really shitty day for them, and they’ll just come across this little bag and think “Wow, I’ve always wanted three olive green hoodies.” Well, you’re welcome people in the future. Good ol’ Alan’s got you covered he does.

The rain just refuses to stop, and the area I had planned on crossing was completely flooded. I know what you’re thinking Canoe, “Why don’t you use your damned map Alan?” and the answer to this is three parts.

Part the first: I seem to have misplaced it.

Part the second: I lost the trail days ago. The map would be useless anyway.

Part the third: Sebastian says I don’t need a map, and that I’ll find my way when it’s time.

July 29th

I’m going under the assumption that this is indeed the 29th. It’s still raining. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned yet but I’m pretty tired. Birds were just atrocious last night. Awful. Endless. I don’t think I’ve had a full night sleep since I got here. I’m trying though.

Had a panic moment where I thought I misplaced my food packet but ended up finding it outside. What the hell am I doing? Tried talking to Sebastian today but he wasn’t interested. Asked him to tell the birds to shut the fuck up and he seemed a little hurt. I don’t blame him. You’ll like Sebastian, Canoe. He’s a good bird.

July 30th

Happy Birthday to me. Unless I’m off by a day. Fuck it. Officially 38. An old, old man. If I were an athlete, I’d have been washed up for about 5 years now. I’d come up to bat and the fans would think, “He’s still with this team?”

It is a very strange feeling to be aware of when you’re losing your lucidity. Right now, I feel completely fine, but earlier Sebastian was talking to me and I started full on bawling. Where did this thing even come from? I guess I should describe what it’s like outside right now for you Canoe.

It’s beautiful. So very beautiful.

I’m in a small clearing, surrounded on all sides by the largest trees I’ve ever seen. This morning alone, I’ve seen three Blue Jays. Made me think of her. Our annual trips to Toronto for a Jays game. Anyway. I’ve seen three of them. I’ve gone my entire adult life without seeing a Blue Jay in Canada, and here I am on the fucking Appalachian Trail and I’ve seen three. Saw a Cardinal surrounded by some crows. Made a joke about the crows being the best fans in the forest, but nobody laughed. Not even Sebastian. What good is a travelling companion if they won’t laugh at your jokes?

There’s a stream nearby, and I’ve been using that to bathe. I’ve temporarily given up leaving this path. I just keep ending up back here. I need a few more days to rest and relax, and then I’ll set off again. I’m a few days behind schedule, so when you show up on September 15th to pick me up, I may not be there. Don’t worry though. I’ll get there eventually, and then you can read this while I sleep and have a few good laughs.

Sebastian says he wants to meet you. He wants to meet all of my family. He’s always talking. It’s dark now, but it’s only noon. I’m tired Canoe. I know I keep writing that, but it’s true. I just need some more sleep. Sebastian says not to worry. I’ll be able to rest soon. He’s good like that.

He just pointed out you won’t even read this until afterwards, so telling you not to worry is pointless. Something else to laugh about later, I hope.

Birds woke me up again last night. Instead of singing, they’ve started screeching. Every goddamn night. The bear cub was back, and this time he brought some friends. Two of them, sitting at the entrance to my tent while he went through the fire pit again. They left, and the birds started to quiet down.

I managed to fall asleep for a while. I miss Peter and David.

Alan. When anxiety was great within me, you brought comfort to my soul.

Know that. - J.

August 1st

I woke up this morning feeling rested. I’m finally ready to set out on the path. Been reading a lot of poetry in my downtime. Have you ever read Sara Teasdale?

“Steely stars and moon of brass,

How mockingly you watch me pass

You know as well as I how soon

I shall be blind to stars and moon”

That’s from her poem The Wind in the Hemlock. Woke up one morning and the book was open on that page. It’s beautiful. It’s dark again. It’s always dark lately. I can never be sure of what time of day it is because of it. My watch is still working though, so at least I have something to let me know when I should be eating or sleeping. I’m setting off now, Canoe. Sebastian says I’m almost out of here. Can’t wait to see you.

Note from Laura: He stopped keeping track of the days from here but still wrote things down.

It’s very noisy outside now. Birds endlessly screeching. Garbled voices whispering always whispering they need to stop. Please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop. …

I stopped using the tent. Too tired to carry it around. I left my pack behind a few miles ago too. I just have a smaller bag for food. I don’t know where I am. I’m not tired anymore; I feel at peace. Finally at rest. Julia came to me, Canoe. She woke me up and sat with me.

You don’t know… I was breathing.

It was her, but something seemed off. Her skin was shining and her eyes…she looked sad. I asked her why she was sad, and she said, “You were the wind.”

She disappeared again after that. Honestly can’t tell if it was a dream. Must have been.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

I left Sebastian in the tent. I want to go back for him, but I can’t risk going back. Not much food left. Should be enough to carry me to the next trail town. It’s still dark out. I’m tired of it, Canoe. So tired. I can hear the birds whispering again. They keep saying, “Home.” They’ll stop soon. They always do. …

How do you know what is and isn’t a dream because right now I am lost. Very lost.

I saw Peter and David. I was so relieved to see other people, I started crying. They reminded me of Julia before. Their eyes were wrong. Everything here is wrong. Asked them how they found me, and they seemed as confused by the question as I was by their appearance. They told me they just randomly saw me on the trail, sleeping beside a bush. They invited me back into their tent and gave me some of their clothing. Peter made me soup. David tended my wounds.

Their voices aren’t right. Nothing about this is right.

I have seen Julia every night for the past week. She doesn’t talk. Just sits beside me and smiles. Her smile is empty. Somber. Vacuous. It’s a smile that simultaneously does and doesn’t exist.

This morning, Peter told me that we’re only two days away from Frederick. Sorry if I’m late. I’ll see you soon. …

Cub is back, only it’s not a cub. Hairless. Deep set eyes. That smile. Oh god that smile. Birds are too much. Julia. She said it’s time to come home.

I’m going home. I’m coming home. I’m ready… I’m ready. …

There was a light beside the tree

I followed it, it welcomed me

Its voice was pure and saccharine

I listened close, it took my grief

It drove the darkness from all things

It flowed like rains that fall in spring

There was no light behind her eyes

Or mottled skin that shined so bright

She said the time to leave is now So I am going home

§

It was two years ago when a couple named Peter and David had me meet them in the parking lot of a motel in Frederick to return Alan’s journal. On the last night they saw him, he had handed Peter the journal, said to make sure it got to me, and went to bed.

Alan was gone by morning, and nobody has seen him since.

I miss Alan.

I only bring this all up because this morning I received a package in the mail.

It was a stuffed, toy Sparrow bird and a letter.

The letter contained only two words, but it was incredibly difficult to read.

He’s home.

Shawn Lachance is a baseball obsessed writer from the frozen Hellscape of Ottawa, Canada. He lives with his wonderful fiancé Rachelle and together they are the live-in caregivers of Lucy-Furr, Noushky (BitchCat) and Hammy the dog.

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Table of Contents

- Foreword
- END TRAILS JOHN MORGAN
- THE GHOST SANG JEFFERY X MARTIN
- BLOOD IS ALWAYS THICKER
- THE TOWN OF AFURISIT CHARITY LANGLEY
- THE BEND BY C.W . BLACKWELL
- BRAIDS , LIKE ROOTS DAMASCUS MINCEMEYER
- TRESPASSER RENEE MILLER
- HEMLOCK WINDS SHAWN LACHANCE