"But they always wanted to go. Why? Because something happened to them when they gathered in that clearing at night. The existing letters describe a power that flowed through them, an energy, something that sounds to me, as a twenty-first century reader and a confirmed skeptic, rather akin to possession, as though something took hold of them in those woods and drove them to carry out their duties with a fervor and a zeal they might not have felt if they had met anywhere else. The letters and journal entries also speak of the power that the place held over them, as though something there kept drawing them back to that clearing, and at some point, they found themselves craving a return there for a fresh fix of whatever it had to offer.
"What I'm about to say shouldn't seem like a big leap. It seems likely that whatever feeling possessed those members of The Pioneer Club in the woods enabled them to carry out the decisions they reached there. How else would otherwise law-abiding citizens become willing to carry out what amounts to ritualized rape and murder? How?"
Before he had even finished speaking, he saw a hand up.
"Isn't the answer obvious?" the student asked.
"I don't know. You tell me."
"Well, isn't it possible that they were using this clearing as an excuse to do whatever they wanted to do. It's like saying, 'the devil made me do it.'"
"Interesting theory," Ludwig said. Inwardly, he was pleased. He had led them part of the way to that conclusion, but stopped just short, hoping that one of them would carry the discussion the rest of the way. "You're saying that the clearing has no real power of any kind, that these people were just looking for an excuse in the way that you all use alcohol as an excuse on the weekends. 'Oh, I never would have slept with him if I hadn't been drunk.' Right?"
He scored a lot of laughter with that comment. Sex sells, he thought. So does the truth.
"But what if I told you that The Pioneer Club felt safe when they met in that clearing at night? They felt safe there because no Indians ever came near it. Never did and never would. Grass didn't grow there and wildlife—bears and cougars and dogs—avoided it at all cost. And what if I mentioned the lights that sometimes appeared in the trees, the voices moaning in the wind, the apparitions, the figures seen in that area that never materialized, lingering somewhere between the known, material world and whatever exists on the other side? What about all of that? Mass-hysteria? Panic? Or is it something more? Is it a haunted place where our ancestors forced unfortunates to pay the ultimate price for their sins? Is it a locus of evil?"
He stopped himself. He'd been ranting, and the students were staring at him, a bit open-mouthed, unsure of what to make of him. Ludwig couldn't help it. He found the topic fascinating and easily became fired up while talking about it.
He took a deep breath and looked at his watch.
"I see we're running short of time, so maybe we need to wrap this up. Don't forget to pick up a syllabus on the way out of the room. It has your reading assignment for the next class on it."
The guy in the back, the one who had asked the first question, had his hand up again.
"Yes?"
"I want to go to this place in the woods, man," he said. "Can you tell us where it is?"
Other heads in the room nodded.
"You all want to go there, do you?" Ludwig said.
"Yeah."
Ludwig shrugged. "If you find it, let me know. I've been trying to pinpoint that clearing's location for the last fifteen years. No luck. And even if I did know, or even if I just had some theories, do you think I'd share them with you? What are you going to do with the information? Go out there on Halloween and drink beer, hoping that somebody levitates or a ghost floats by?"
"That would be cool."
"It would, wouldn't it? But I'm not kidding when I say that nobody really knows. And unless you want to go out there and wander through every inch of forest in Union Township until you come across it, the location may remain a secret for a long, long time. At some point, probably during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, The Pioneer Club simply ceased to exist. At least, there are no records that I've been able to find to prove they were still around. Maybe they thought they'd outlived their effectiveness. Maybe the membership grew old and died out. Maybe the modern world made it more and more difficult for them to hide their activities." Ludwig shrugged again. "Who knows?"
He paused, and the students started to stir. They sensed class was ending, and the minds that hadn't already shifted to whatever they wanted to do next did so. But Ludwig wasn't finished with them. He liked to send them away with something meaty to chew on.
"Of course," he said, "it's possible that The Pioneer Club never really disbanded. It's possible some form of that club exists in New Cambridge today. So whenever you pass an old man on the street or in the store, and he gives you more than a passing glance, ask yourself if he might not be thinking of taking you out to that clearing in the woods to answer to a higher power. You just never know, do you?"
CHAPTER NINE
Roger waited for the girl.
He had pulled his van off to the side of County Road 600 and turned the flashers on, making it look like he was just a regular guy having car trouble. The van was so old—he had it when the first girl came to live with him—that it wouldn't be hard for anyone to believe that it had broken down.
But he also knew that a girl wouldn't always stop to help a guy with car trouble. A guy would. A guy would stop and maybe get out his tools or at least offer to give a jump or a push or a lift. But Roger knew a girl might not. She might be scared or nervous. That's why he had another story to tell her when she stopped, one that would put the girl at ease. He had a plan.
He stood at the front of the van and leaned against it, even shaking his head a couple of times to add to the illusion that he was a guy having the worst sort of luck in the world. He smelled gasoline and oil, the industrial rubber they used for the hoses. But he kept his eyes up the road. He knew she'd be coming soon. She always came at the same time, the same place. Roger liked that. He liked routine.
The other girl's death had disrupted his routine. He used to be able to count on his days having a pattern, a comfortable sameness from one to the next that he could rely on, but that wasn't the case any more. It started going away when the girl got sick, but her sickness had brought routines of its own. Bring her chicken broth and toast in the morning. Carry her to the bathroom after that. Change the sheets if she soiled them. Repeat the whole thing at lunch and dinner. But once she died, Roger was alone, and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to find his way back into a routine.
Even before the girl died, Roger found himself spending more and more time in the clearing.
While the girl slept, achieving temporary relief from her pain and sickness, Roger went hunting, just like he had when he was a kid and his dad was still around. He didn't find much game in the woods. A lot of the deer were gone, the numbers reduced by the surrounding development and an outbreak of wasting disease. But Roger could still find squirrels and birds to shoot, anything to distract him from the dying girl he had to return to in the house. He would occasionally make his way to the clearing on these hunting excursions, but it didn't speak to him during daylight. He'd go there and just sit on a rock. He'd look down at the ground and he'd wonder why someone like the girl, someone who had never hurt anyone in her whole life, had to get sick and die. It happened to his parents, too. Nice people. Good people. And then the girl. Soon they would all be gone.
He supposed that someday he too would die and get put in the ground. But who would do it? Who would even know he was there, dying and then rotting in the old house, his body turning into a skeleton on the bed? Who would miss him? Who would cry for him?
Roger couldn't bear to think that way for very long. He'd get up and leave the clearing and go back to hunting, or just wander around the woods.
But at night, everything was different. At night, the clearing did speak to him. Not like human voices, not any
thing he could hear, but something he could feel. The clearing vibrated in his bones and jangled his nerves. It made his skin break out in goose pimples and sweat drip from his every pore. It felt like some power, something he couldn't see, whispered among the tall trees and the undergrowth, rustling the leaves and shivering the grasses, and then passed through his skin and into his body, filling him. Possessing him.
He became something else when he was in the clearing at night. Something stronger, something hungrier.
And the hardness always returned between his legs, swelling up until it hurt.
He knew there were ways for men to relieve that swelling, painful urgency on their own. His dad had talked to him about it once. But Roger didn't like to do it that way. He tried to from time to time—even tried it in the clearing—but it always left him feeling more hungry afterwards, like he'd just had a taste but the real meal still hadn't been served.
He had even brought the shovel with him to the clearing that very morning and began digging into the rich earth, working down to the place where the dead girl lay. He thought if he could just bring her back out again, just one time, he might be able to find some temporary relief. Roger even went so far as to shovel a couple of spadefuls of dirt out of her grave, his hands shaking and his mouth watering like a dog's while he did it. But he stopped himself and threw the shovel aside. It wasn't right. It just wasn't decent to disturb the dead that way. He knew she was already rotting, her skin falling away and getting eaten by worms. Her eyes sinking back into her skull.
He shook his head. No, he just couldn't bear to do it.
He sank to the ground and almost cried. He felt the hot tears form behind his eyes, waiting to spring out and run down his face. But he fought against them. He knew what he needed to do. He knew what the clearing wanted him to do. And just thinking about it, there in that spot, made Roger feel better, like there was hope that he wouldn't always feel this way or always be alone.
And he knew that the problem wouldn't get solved out there, in the clearing, but had to be taken care of somewhere else. Someplace where there were people.
Girls.
He stood up, dusted himself off, and went to find the shovel. He had thrown it out of the clearing and into the knee-high grass that grew beneath the trees, but he needed it back to replace the dirt he had removed from the girl's grave. He didn't want to think about leaving her grave disturbed or imperfect. She deserved better than that.
But he didn't know if he could find the shovel in the thick grass. Roger moved in the direction he had thrown it, stumbling over some loose rocks and almost falling down. He thought it might be smart to just come back another time when his head was clearer, find the shovel then and take care of the grave, but he didn't think he could walk away knowing that he hadn't replaced the dirt. So he kept on going, eventually bending down and feeling in the grass with his hands. He felt dirt and leaves and touched something small and slimy that must have been a slug.
"Come on," he said. "I know it's here."
His hand felt a round rock, its edges surprisingly smooth. He was about to toss it aside and move on when his finger, his large right index finger, slipped inside the rock. He pulled his hand back, but curiosity got the better of him. It seemed like such an odd rock that he wanted to touch it again, bring it out of the grass and see it.
So he plunged into the grass again, feeling around. And he found the rock and slipped his finger into the hole. He got a good grip and lifted it out and up near his face.
It took a moment for him to see what it was. There was another hole next to the one his finger was through, and a smaller hole beneath that.
And a row of even teeth, grinning at him in the dark.
When he saw that, he almost dropped it, but somehow managed to keep his grip.
It was a skull. A human skull.
* * *
Roger looked up the road and saw her coming.
She rode her bike like she was training for some big event. Roger saw her pedaling down County Road 600, a determined look on her face. He passed her going and coming on the days he went to the grocery store. He had seen her many times, long before the last girl had died, and Roger made a note of her punctuality, her adherence to a routine. He liked that. It made him think the girl on the bike was special. And where he waited seemed like a good spot. It was a mile from his house, so people wouldn't automatically think of him, but it was close enough that he could do what he had to do and get home before anyone knew anything was wrong.
Well, not wrong, he thought. Wrong is...the wrong word. He remembered what his dad told him about taking a wife, and the way they used to do it in the old days, back when the elders met in the clearing.
"If a man didn't have a wife," his dad said, "why we'd find him one. Some fellows just need a little help, that's all."
Roger didn't need help. He had a plan. He was ready to go.
She came toward him on her expensive bike, her legs pumping, her red helmet reflecting the sun like a beacon. Roger had seen her a number of times now and thought she looked pretty. Prettier than the last girl, and he liked the thought of that. He was moving up in the world, getting a better wife and a better life.
He knew she saw him, but Roger stepped out into the road when the girl was still a good distance away. He hadn't thought of what he would do if she didn't stop. Roger just assumed she would. She seemed nice. Why wouldn't she?
He waved his arms at her, flagging her down, and for a moment, a scary moment in which his heart climbed into his chest, shutting off the flow of air to his lungs, he thought she wasn't going to stop after all.
But then he heard the gentle whine of her brakes, and he knew she was slowing down.
Roger waited, trying to look calm and innocent. She breezed past him, the air whooshing over Roger as she went by, and then she stopped about twenty feet past him, the bike turned at a slight angle toward the road so she had to turn her head back over her shoulder to speak to him.
Roger wanted to say something, but he couldn't find the words.
He froze.
The girl stared at him for a long moment, squinting against the sun. She reached down and pulled out a water bottle.
"You break down?" she said.
Roger saw that the girl was breathing heavily, and she took the water bottle and sprayed it over her face and then into her mouth, spitting some back out onto the blacktop.
Roger still couldn't find his voice. Up close, the girl was beautiful. Even sweating and in her biking clothes, she was beautiful. Come on, come on, Roger said inside. You have the plan. Follow the plan. But his voice wouldn't cooperate. She was too pretty. She was too good to be true.
The girl put the water bottle away and studied Roger. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I'd call somebody for you, but I don't have my cell. I'm sure someone will come along in a minute." She looked around. "Although on these roads, you never know."
She laughed, a bright energetic sound that made Roger's heart jump again.
The plan? The plan?
"Well," she said. "I'm sort of on a schedule, so..." She shrugged. "Good luck getting going."
She lifted her left foot to the pedal and was about to shove off when Roger finally spoke.
"I hit a dog," he said.
The girl turned. "What did you say?"
"I hit a dog. With my van."
"Oh," she said, placing her hand against her chest. Her face looked incredibly sad, and Roger knew at that moment his plan just might work. "Oh, that's awful."
"I think it's hurt."
"I'm so sorry to hear that."
The girl didn't get off the bike, though. She stood there, straddling it, while she gave Roger's face a longer look. Roger knew what was happening. He had seen it many times before. The girl was figuring something out about Roger, something that was also going to work in Roger's favor. The girl was deciding that Roger "wasn't quite right." But she wasn't thinking that he wasn't quite right in
a bad way, in the way that a person—especially a girl—would want to avoid at all costs, but she was deciding that he wasn't quite right in a safe way, in the way that made a person want to help him. Sort of like the pretend dog that Roger hoped she really thought was lying under his van wheels.
Roger knew that the less he said the greater the likelihood she would think him special, so he pointed back toward the van and said, "The dog..."
"Right," she said. She gently set her bike down in the road. "Do you want me to come and look at it?"
Roger nodded, and the girl came toward him but stopped ten feet away.
"Is it over here?" she said, pointing toward the side of the van.
"Yes."
"Is it moving?" she said.
"A little."
Roger turned away, heard the scrape of the girl's shoes against the gravel, but when he went around the side of the van and looked back at the girl, he saw that she remained in place, having decided not to come farther. Roger saw that her lips were slightly parted, as though forming a question she didn't really want to speak. She seemed to be giving her next step a great deal of thought.
"You know, I should probably be moving on," she said. "It's getting late."
Roger looked at the still bright sky. He knew what the girl meant. She didn't trust him. But if she moved on, the plan was dead, and if the plan died today, without the girl coming with him, he had no idea when or if he could ever try again. This was the best chance, perhaps the only chance. And the longer they waited, the greater the chance a car would come driving by and ruin everything once and for all.
The Girl In The Woods Page 6