The Spirits of Six Minstrel Run

by Matthew S. Cox

  Adam grabbed at the blur of flannel in front of him. Weston yanked the knife out and shoved him aside. His left leg gave out, dumping him to the ground on his chest, his fingers tearing the pocket off Weston’s shirt on the way.

  The man stepped over him and went into the kitchen, mumbling something about needing to slay demons on holy ground.

  Adam dragged himself around with one arm to face the doorway, his left hand clamped over the wound. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself up on one knee and grabbed the doorjamb for support. He didn’t think he’d survive a rematch with Weston in his present condition, but he didn’t have to survive… he only had to keep him busy long enough for his daughter to run.

  Robin stared up in terrified awe at the mean old pastor stalking across the dining room toward her, daddy’s blood dripping off his knife.

  Her father staggered into view in the kitchen, wheezing, “Run! Get to Willa’s!”

  She scrambled out from under the table and darted for the front door, screaming for help, but managed to pull it open only an inch or two before Weston mashed his hand into it above her head, slamming it. He tried to grab for her, but she shrieked, ducked, and raced up the stairs on all fours. She skidded to a stop at her bedroom door, afraid to go in there, not with an angry man chasing her—too much like how she became squishy last time. Her room made for a bad hiding place.

  A fleshy thud came from the stairway. Daddy grunted. Weston growled. Several meaty thumps and the heavy whump of a body falling to the floor followed.

  Robin managed not to scream. Eyes blurred with tears, she dashed down the hall to her parents’ room and crawled under the bed. At the thud of footsteps in the hallway, she covered her mouth with both hands and tried to keep as quiet as possible.

  The house hung in silence. She listened, but the mean pastor must be in her room, searching for her. Robin breathed through her nose, trembling. Minutes passed. She worried about Daddy. He’d been hurt real bad. If she waited too long, he might become a ghost. But if the mean old pastor found her…

  She eyed the bedspread blocking her view of the room. If the bad man had gone into her bedroom, she might be able to sneak by and make it out of the house. An old man like him wouldn’t be able to catch her.

  Tears dripped off her face. Terrified, but also afraid of losing her good daddy, she crept toward the edge of the bed.

  The bedspread whipped upward, revealing Weston’s evil grin—and blackened eye. “Gotcha!”

  Robin shrieked. She scrambled backward, but he grabbed her right ankle and hauled her out from under the bed. When she stomped at his face with her other foot, he grabbed that ankle as well, lifting her into the air upside down. Her dress fell over her face, blinding her.

  She flailed and screamed. He swung her up and tossed her on the bed, then grabbed her in a bear hug, pinning her arms. Robin screeched and thrashed as he carried her downstairs, past Daddy—who lay face down on the living room floor, not moving—and into the kitchen. Upon reaching the small pantry room by the back door, he pinned her to the floor long enough to tie her hands behind her back with duct tape and bind her ankles together.

  She squirmed and struggled, but couldn’t snap the tape. “Let me go! You’re mean! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “Your pleas fall on deaf ears, demon. You cannot fool me. I know what you really are.”

  “I’m not!” wailed Robin, wriggling.

  He lifted her again, tossing her over his shoulder like a bag of dog food.

  “Daddy!” screamed Robin. “Help!”

  Weston carried her outside, across the deck, and over to the left side of their yard where he’d parked his Jeep Cherokee. He opened the back hatch and unceremoniously tossed her inside on her chest, then slammed it. Robin peered up at a wall of metal grating behind the rearmost seat that turned the back end of the truck into a cage. Similar bars covered both side windows. The space stank like wet dog and a few muddy paw prints marked the beige carpet. She twisted to look behind her. The inside face of the hatch didn’t have any handles, buttons, or knobs to open it.

  “Let me out!” screamed Robin.

  She bent her legs back, picking uselessly at the tape between her ankles.

  Weston got in and started the engine.

  “Please leave us alone. I’m not a demon. Please don’t make me a ghost!” She rolled over and got up on her knees, grabbing the cage behind her back and shaking it.

  “That mesh will hold a pit bull,” said Weston. “But keep on tryin’. You may have fooled that poor woman and gullible man, but my faith in the Lord is too strong.”

  She pulled at it for another few seconds before a turn flung her over sideways.

  “Please let me go,” wailed Robin. “I’m not bad!”

  “I know exactly what you are,” said Weston in a younger, deeper voice.

  Robin froze, nearly peeing all over the floor from fright. He sounded exactly like Bad Daddy. Each time he steered around a slight bend in the road, she slid back and forth across the kennel area, bumping into small plastic doors over storage compartments on either side.

  “The preacher and I are going to return you to where you belong.”

  “No!” Robin rolled onto her back and kicked at the grating again and again, scream-crying, “Mommy! Help!”

  41

  Mother's Instinct

  Saturday, June 22, 2019

  Mia drove west along County Route 69, heading for Interstate 81.

  Out of nowhere, worry at what she’d find at the museum blanked entirely out of her head, leaving her wondering why she drove anywhere at that moment.

  She blinked.

  Robin.

  An overwhelming need to check on her daughter fell on her like a sack of cinder blocks. She stomped on the brakes and swerved into the entry drive for the Parish Country Lodge, slammed the shifter into reverse, and backed out onto the road again, facing the other direction.

  Mia floored it, accelerating well past the speed limit without giving a shit. A cop could chase her all the way back home for all she cared. She flew down Route 69, squeezing the steering wheel so hard she half expected it to break in her hands. Both cars she illegally passed honked at her. She yelled at her phone to call Adam and ringing filled the truck’s speakers.

  “Hi, this is Adam Gartner, well, no it isn’t. It’s my voicemail. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Fuck!” screamed Mia.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” said her iPhone. “Please repeat your command after the beep.”

  She slowed enough to avoid rolling the Tahoe into the weeds when she reached the turn for Split Oak Road. Between its small size and winding route, she could only get up to fifty before worrying too much about losing control. Killing herself in a car wreck would be no good to her daughter.

  With each passing minute, her fear deepened to outright nausea. She again shouted at her phone to call Adam, and it again went to voicemail.

  A few locals gave her nasty looks for speeding down Main Street, but she evidently didn’t go fast enough to drag Nate out of his seat. Or maybe no one had been in the Sheriff’s office at that moment. More likely, they knew exactly who buzzed Main Street at fifty-five and would be mailing her a ticket.

  An agonizing four minutes later, she screeched the tires pulling into the driveway at the house. The sight of the front door ajar made her scream. She leapt out of the Tahoe, not bothering to kill the engine—or close the door—and hurried inside.

  Adam lay on the floor, bleeding all over himself from a wound in his lower chest and several smaller cuts on his face. His lip had swollen up and blood leaked from his nose.

  Mia dropped to her knees beside him and shouted at her phone to call 911.

  “Oh, hi,” wheezed Adam. “How was the museum?”

  “Adam!” She clutched his arm. “What happened?”

  The delirious quality to his expression cleared. “Weston… he’s got Robin.”

 
“I’m gonna kill him.”

  Adam grabbed his chest wound and grunted. “Hurry. Go. Get her. He’s not gonna kill her until he’s at the church. There’s still time.”

  “Spring Falls 911, this is Deputy Clark,” said the phone.

  “Allison! Send an ambulance as fast as you can to Six Minstrel Run. My husband’s been stabbed and my daughter’s been kidnapped.”

  “Slow down, ma’am. You say your husband’s been stabbed?”

  “Go,” wheezed Adam. “Move! I can make it ’til the ambulance gets here. The church…”

  Mia set her phone on Adam’s chest. “Yes. He’s been stabbed. I gotta go right now or my daughter’s gonna die.”

  “Ma’am?” asked Deputy Clark.

  Mia ran outside, jumped in the Tahoe, and screeched the tires backing out of the driveway. The truck hit the road so hard she screamed, fearing it would bounce and roll over, but it only wobbled. Snarling, she glared at the road.

  Deer Path to Brownbriar Road.

  Snarling, she stomped on the gas pedal, too furious to cry.

  42

  Where You Belong

  Saturday, June 22, 2019

  Robin rolled around the dog cage in the back of the Jeep, helpless to stop herself.

  The mean pastor didn’t drive well at all. She curled up, trying to keep her face from bouncing off the storage compartments or the rear hatch. Screaming, she pulled and twisted at her hands even though it felt like the tape would rip her skin off.

  Tight stickiness slipped down over her right hand. Robin strained, pulling as hard as she could with her arms in such an awkward position behind her. Twisting her hand side to side, she worked her hand loose a little bit at a time. A turn threw her to the right. She rolled like a log into the side compartments, knocking one of the plastic doors open.

  At the end of the turn, the Jeep flung her onto her chest. She huffed, nearly out of breath. This man would make her a ghost again; giving up wasn’t an option. Grunting, Robin tried to force her arms around her butt. The tape tore down over her fingers—and her right hand popped free.

  The stinging made her cry, but when she pulled her hand around to look at it, the pain stopped. She hadn’t ripped her skin off—it only felt like it. A wad of silver tape still clung to her left wrist, but she ignored it, grabbing at the tape tying her ankles together. It refused to tear no matter how hard she pulled at it.

  Robin almost screamed in frustration but stopped herself, eyeing the open storage cubby. Maybe one of them had a knife she could use to cut herself free. Each had a little plastic door with a pushbutton to open it. The first door she checked contained a plastic shopping bag full of wooden talismans—the same ones Wilhelmina had put around the outside of the house.

  He broke the spell!

  The second one she opened contained a black plastic box and an orange gun that looked like it came from a cartoon. She considered the strange weapon for an instant, but kept looking. Before she did anything else, she had to get her legs untied. Among other tools, the fourth cubby had a retractable knife like the one from Bad Daddy’s toolbox.

  Holding her breath, Robin reached into the cubby and gingerly removed the knife, keeping low to the ground near the front of the cage, hiding behind the back of the rear seats so the mean pastor couldn’t see her. She pressed the nub down and pushed about an inch of blade out the front end. Holding a blade that sharp near her feet in the back of a bouncing Jeep scared her, but not half as much as the man behind the wheel scared her. She twisted her feet as far apart as the tape allowed and raked the blade at the silvery binding. The utility knife sliced the duct tape open with such ease she whimpered, not wanting it anywhere near her skin. The instant the tape snapped open, she retracted the blade, then kicked her legs free.

  Weston hit the brakes hard, flinging her against the cage wall. She caught herself with her hands and held on until the forces holding her stopped. The Jeep took a gradual right turn and the sound of tires chewing up dirt road filled the cabin.

  Having no better ideas, Robin went for the cartoony orange gun. She grabbed the cage with her left hand, braced her right foot against the side wall, and rose up on one knee, sticking the fat barrel through one of the square openings in the bars, pointed at the back of his head.

  “Stop and let me out or I’ma shoot you!”

  He twisted to look back at her, wide-eyed.

  The Jeep drifted to the right, leaving the dirt road. A bump bounced Robin upward. She involuntarily clenched her grip on the gun, which went off with a loud bang and a fwoosh. Bright orange light streaked past Weston’s face, missing him by an inch. Still, he screamed. The blindingly intense orange ball bounced off the windshield and ricocheted into the passenger seat.

  Stinky smoke flooded the front of the Jeep as the seat caught fire. Weston howled, coughing.

  Robin tossed the gun aside and got down. The back door had no handles or any way to open from the inside. Overwhelmed and terrified, Robin resorted to the most logical thing she could think of doing: she screamed for her mother.

  The Jeep bounced over rough ground, throwing her around the dog kennel like a tennis ball in a clothes dryer. She grabbed at the mesh, unable to see anything but smoke. Weston shouted a whole bunch of nasty words, the same ones Bad Daddy used all the time. He hammered the brakes, throwing Robin against the front wall of the cage, but the Jeep came to a sudden stop with a jarring impact and another loud bang from the front.

  She coughed as smoke filled her prison, no longer screaming for her mother because it hurt too much to breathe. Fire glowed amid the haze, brightening as it crept down the passenger side toward her and spread up into the roof fabric.

  A door creaked. A steady stream of grumbled bad words moved around to the back end.

  Panic pushed her as close to the door as possible, the end of the Jeep as far as she could get away from the burning while locked inside. Weston opened the rear hatch, but grabbed her when she tried to jump out.

  He hurriedly fished a roll of duct tape out of another cubby, then dragged her away from the burning truck. Robin screamed and fought, but lacked the strength to escape his grip. At a safe distance from the fire, he took a knee and draped her over it as if to spank her. The man appeared furious, eyes watery and bleary, breath wheezy, a bright red burn on his head above his right eyebrow, but he didn’t say a word while forcing her arms together behind her back.

  “Help!” shouted Robin as loud as she could make herself. “Mommy! Please help me, I’m being kidnapped!”

  Weston clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Lost to feral panic, Robin bit down on his middle finger with every intent to rip it off. He let out a yowl of pain and recoiled, cradling his hand to his chest. She twisted away from him, landing on all fours in grass that came up to her knees after she leapt to her feet. Weston swiped at her with his unbitten left hand. She ducked his attempt to grab her and ran.

  A large building with a cross painted on the wall stood off to the right. The dirt-and-gravel parking lot had a few other cars in it—but anyone in it there might be as mean as the bad pastor. She kept going straight toward the woods. Dry grass whipped at her legs and snagged between her toes. Weston’s coughing drew closer, coming up behind her.

  She dashed out of the tall grass onto a swath of mowed lawn, which allowed her to run faster. At the other side, she plunged without hesitation into the woods. Thumping footsteps followed close along with the crunch of branches the taller man had to shove out of his way. She veered for a pair of trees too close together for a grown-up to fit, darting between them. Weaving back and forth around trees kept him far enough behind that he couldn’t grab her, though she dared not look back. Instead, she aimed for every place she thought he’d be too big to follow.

  An eternity later, she stumbled down a hill, waving her arms for balance. A belabored wheeze behind her sounded far enough away that she decided to risk looking. Weston emitted a groan, gasping for air between whispers about demonic little i
mps. Not being able to see him gave her hope and a second wind. She kept running for a little while more.

  Thick undergrowth as tall as her chest covered a stretch of forest up ahead around a massive tree with a trunk as big around as a refrigerator. She ducked down and crawled in, tucking herself up against the bark under a canopy of broad leaves. If she could only stop breathing so hard and stay quiet, he might not find her.

  Robin curled in a ball and wrapped her arms around her knees. She wanted to gnaw at the wad of duct tape still wrapped around her left wrist, but feared it would make too much noise.

  “There’s no point to running, demon,” rasped Weston, distant, yet close enough to be scary. “You may think you know where you are because you’ve been wandering around here for forty years… but I’ve lived here just as long. You don’t fool me! You aren’t a real child. You’re a demon pretending to be one. I know what you’re doing to that poor woman and her husband! God will forgive you if you ask him to. Come with me to holy ground!”

  She huddled down low. Mommy! Hurry up! I’m here! Please help me!

  “There is no escaping the Will of God, fiend! You belong dead!”

  Robin shivered at the sight of Weston stalking among the trees maybe a hundred feet away from where she hid. Mommy, help! I know you’re coming. I just know it. Please hurry!

  43

  Into the Woods

  Saturday, June 22, 2019

  A great plume of black smoke rose up over the trees not far ahead on the right.

  Mia growled at a big sign with a cross on it by a dirt trail leading away from Brownbriar Road that bore the words ‘Spring Hills Christian Fellowship Church’ beside a right-pointing arrow. She hit the brakes hard, skidding only a little as she steered the Tahoe onto the unpaved road.