Hans rushed back to his inn with the news. There was just one problem, and he despaired that it would abort his guests’ departure. He could not direct them to a road that would take them to the forest. There was only backcountry, and their vehicle could not possibly cover the hilly terrain.
“What’re you sayin’?” Macon growled, over thick pork bacon slabs and piles of syrup-covered hotcakes he and his boys ate in the inn’s dining room. “I know we don’t have a four-by-four but I’ll be damned if you’re sayin’ our car can’t traverse some poppy-coddled kraut-hills. That there’s a genuine hundred percent kick-ass American vehicle that can eat up anything you dandelion krauts can dish out.”
“Oh good. Good. Then in your American vehicle, you can go very well. I’m happy. Happy.”
“Okay then. . . .”
“I will make a small map for you of the places you should pass. It’s very simple. I will draw it. The church. The big church. Watch for it. It is high and you will see it. You will pass that. I will draw it on the map. Oh, and do not go inside the church. There are many rats there. They live in many underground caverns. Oil, oil tar in the soil. They like it. Don’t go in. Continue on, this way straight, and you will come to the forest. It’s the first great woods you will come to. That is where the hunters saw your friends, nearing the head of the forest. Some call it the entrance.”
“What, it got an entrance arch or somethin’?”
“No. It just like, it just looks like an opening in the woods. But also do not go in there.”
“Maybe that’s where they went,” Josiah said, shoveling hotcakes.
“Maybe, but best not to go in. Some go in and do not come out.”
“Huh?”
“We call it The Enchanted Forest,” Hans laughed self-consciously. “But better not to go in.”
“Enchanted Forest?” Joseph said.
“It got gold?” asked Joseph Henry.
“No, no gold. Only some silly tales of fantastic experiences inside. They are very thick woods. Poison plants, vines with sharpness. You can be cut. Hurt. Better, if they went into the forest, for you to wait outside there for them to return. They will have to do that. The woods are too thick to continue through, so wait there for them.”
“Josiah, start the car,” Macon ordered. “Joseph Henry, get our belongins’. Joseph, you use your ‘rithmetic to check the bill our innkeeper’s gonna ready. And innkeep, you pack us some good eatin’ victuals for our trip.”
“Certainly, Reverend.”
“Four-five cooked rabbits, that wild turkey I see there in the kitchen, bacon all you have, bread an’ biscuits, beans, an’ all the other usual fixins. We got a big hunt ahead of us and I don’t aim for any of my hearty boys to go hungry. You hear?”
“Yes, Herr Reverend. We will have everything prepared right away for your trip, thank you. And may you have much success hunting.”
“Thank you, and you know, you ain’t such a bad sort. If-in you pray. Here, put your hand on my Bible. If-in you pray an’ you pray with your heart and you mean it, and you beg Our Lord for forgiveness, an’ keep on, keep on askin’ for His, The Redeemer’s Holy Forgiveness, and you mean it, really mean, son, your finger’ll grow back.”
“Emmm . . . thank you. Thank you, Pastor. I will go now and wrap the turkey. But thank you, Reverend, thank you. Thank you very much.”
>
Nathan, Gus, Leeda, Sammy, and Russell stood on open meadow before a wall of thick wooded vines that blocked seeing far into the forest ahead of them.
“I will read the message exactly as Conrad sent it,” Gus said. “He says to follow it to the letter.” He read aloud off his device, “From where you’re standing, go into the forest before you. It will be hard getting through the vines, but keep going. It will become easier. When you hear falling water ahead—”
“I knew he’d throw something cruel in the way,” Russell said.
“Russell, please listen. When you hear falling water ahead, look around for the vine with black berries. Its flowers will be orange. Each of you pick one handful of the berries, and chew them. They taste good. Be careful not to eat the dark yellow berries that grow along with the black. They’re poisonous. The poisonous ones are easy to pick. Pick around the long needles of the black ones. Eat around their prickly hairs to the tasty ovary. Chew one handful of these. This is my gift to you, little yulen, for making it this far.”
Josiah steered the Early’s grand American car along the German countryside. “Beautiful country this,” Macon said, watching the passing landscape, windows rolled down. “The Lord provides to all His creatures the optimized of what’s most pleasing to their undeserving eyes, and these people sure got lucky.”
“Ain’t Louisiana swamp,” Joseph Henry said.
“I wouldn’t trade it,” said Josiah.
“I kinda like it,” Joseph said, taking in the pastoral beauty.
“Up ahead, I think I see the church the feller said.”
“Head for it, son,” Macon said, sitting back like a lord in the front seat of his majestic vehicle.
Nathan’s group, whacking their way with broken branches through thicket, cut a winding way in the forest that sunlight could hardly penetrate. “Let me take the lead,” Gus said to Nathan.
“Okay. Everybody alright?”
“Wait,” Leeda said, listening beyond. “Quiet . . . Water?”
“You know, Pa,” Joseph Henry said in the car, “you never said what we was goin’ to do with those fellers when we caught up with ‘em.”
“One of ‘em is a woman . . . ,” Josiah snickered to Joseph Henry.
“Hush,” Macon said. “That’s a good question, Joseph Henry. And it deserves an answer, but I don’t know exactly what we’re gonna do because The Lord ain’t yet told your father what to do. The best I figure is we’ll talk to them.”
“Ask ‘em where they got their gold,” Joseph Henry said.
“Like I think I just said, I don’t know. You don’t rush The Lord, boy. Not when you are humble enough to follow His blessed path.”
Near where the waterfall sounded and the thick forest opened to let sunlight penetrate, the pursued searched in the bushes and vines for the black berries Hain described. When they found the black berries, the long needles protecting them pricked their hands as they plucked handfuls of Hains’ designated fruit.
“Not that one, Russell,” Gus said, referring to the yellow berry.
“I know, I know, commandant.”
“You know? Then why pick it. Hain said it was poisonous.”
“You ever stop to think maybe it’s the black ones that are poison?”
“There’d be no reason for him to poison us, Russell.”
“Oh no?”
“There might but it’s not in keeping with his character. Clearly, it’s his desire to keep us going.”
“You really believe that. Tell it to Shawn.”
“That was an accident.”
“No accident, Gus, that he sent us to that church,” Sammy said, reaching through the thicket for his handful of black fruit.
“Let’s just follow his instructions, and not pick the bad ones can we.”
“Stop the car,” Macon said, passing the front of the abandoned church that the earlier travelers fled. “We’re goin’ to church.”
“It ain’t Sunday, Pa.”
“A man of God does not pass a church and keep on going.”
“But the man said not to go in.”
“The man said, exactly. And do we obey the word of man or the word of God!”
Their Caddy slowed and parked in front of the church, the structure’s center and side archways stripped of their once hallowed doors.
Nathan and his group stood in a circle among the vines looking at one another. “Anyone wants to go first?” he asked.
“Actually, they’re pretty good,” Leeda said, chewing.
“Come on. Everybody then.”
“I bet they’ll stain our teeth,” Samm
y said, biting a black berry.
“Bombs away,” Russell said, bending his neck back and pushing his handful into his mouth.
“Bombs away,” Nathan said, doing as Russell, the rest then following and grinding the berries in their mouths.
“Just wait by that car,” Macon called back to Joseph at their parked Cadillac while he and his other boys walked up several rows of stairs to the front entrance. “I wouldn’t want to come out later and see my car disappeared into some local’s lair,” he called back to Joseph.
“Don’t worry Pa. I’ll protect our property.”
“We gonna be here long, Pa?” Josiah said, as they passed an archway into the vestibule separated from the nave by a rotting wood dividing wall.
“Long as The Lord wants, boy. Now quiet as we walk into His House,” Reverend Early said, leading them toward the main altar.
The spacious church, empty but for the two rows of hulking columns lining the nave, and lit by shafts of light streaking from the holes in the ceiling, looked as when Nathan and his group first entered. “Smells like a garage,” Josiah said.
“Like old carburetors. Auto grease,” Joseph Henry added.
“Hush up,” said their father, as they respectfully walked to the head of the church.
In the innkeeper’s so-called enchanted forest, the pursued approached a waterfall they’d cut a path to through thinning woods. Sunlight sparkled playfully off the cascading droplets.
“Pa? . . .” Joseph Henry said, turning from looking back at the church entrance. “There’s uh, rats behind.”
“You ain’t seen rates before, boy? Now show proper respect in The Lord’s House, and shut up.”
The white stream of placid falling water splashed gingerly on a lulling pool reflecting trees gently swaying along the velvety verdant mountainside. Surrounding the sparkling water, blooms edged the sloping ground. By sun-warmed stone ledges beside the pool, several women waded in the water up to their necks. When they spotted the watching visitors, their slim arms lifted from the water, and waved they come closer. Nathan and his band exchanged puzzled glances that were at the same time unconcerned and untroubled.
Macon Early and his two eldest knelt on a stone step before the where once the full main altar had stood. Boards covered the stone arches where stained-glass windows long ago broken or vandalized had been. Signaling that he’d finished communing with The Creator, Reverend Early crossed himself, and his sons followed. During prayers, they’d heard rats scamper and even saw them through partially opened eyes, but when they turned, the ocean of black behind them left them gasping.
“Am I seeing right?” Josiah said.
“You’re seein’ right,” Joseph Henry said. “I told you there was rats behind.”
“Let’s start walkin’,” Macon said, taking cautious steps on the not yet covered ground before the altar steps, but retreating when the rats did not spread to let them pass.
“This ain’t goin’ to be like the parting of The Red Sea, I think, Pa,” Joseph Henry said apprehensively.
In the forest’s pool, the woods’ visitors waded with the young maidens. More of these arrived, stripped to the waist or wearing only sheer white dresses. They dove into the water with the visitors, who wore only nature’s attire. Some of the nymphs did not dive into the pool from the slate ledges near the gently falling cataracts, and stretched out instead on the sun-warmed stone.
“What do we do, Pa? They’re still comin’ like by the hundreds, there, down from the columns.”
“And up from them cracks along the side walls.”
“Joseph!” Macon called. “Joseph!”
At once, his young son’s silhouette appeared at the side front door arch.
“Bring that car in here!”
In the water or on the drying ledges, the forest’s guests played with the beautiful, nubile water nymphs. A song came from the woods as if an animate nature sang from the trees, soil, and blossoms. Even the sparkling water that Sammy watched while nymphs he rested with curled his hair into braids, sang to him a song of tranquility he’d never known. In the water, Gus swam paddling outstretched arms that untangled every sore of his traveled body. Water nymphs with flower wreaths in their hair smiled swimming along with him, and he with them, all his pains gently retreating.
The Caddy’s rear tires shot back twin streams of soil, Joseph pushing the accelerator but keeping his foot on the brake. Gouging earth from the ground before the church in front of it, the car suddenly wove ahead. It jumped to the steps before the open center arch, lurched off them to the entrance patio, onto the vestibule marble, and crashed through the wooden wall separating it from the inside church.
At the falling water’s edge, the permanent forest dwellers, who seemed eternally youthful, washed Nathan’s hair with flowery scented oils. Others massaged his tense shoulders, while one curled into his chest and lifted moist red lips to his welcoming own.
“Yeeehaa!” Russell shouted, the Caddy swerving through the nave and he purposely zigzagging to run over the carpet of rats.
“Here! Over here!” his brothers called from the altar steps.
“Dag blasted! You’re gonna crash that car!” his father shouted.
“Yeeeha!” Russell yelled, having a blast but suddenly veering out of control when rats got in through the open windows.
“The car, boy!” Macon shouted, fleeing the side-skidding automobile lunging toward them, rats thrown airborne like a rushing wave. “Boy!”
Car body sliding sideways, Russell attempting to close the windows, the long Caddy hit a stone column, and smoke instantly rose from out the front hood. “Fast into the car!” Macon called, and the three scampered to it, each pulling open a door and jumping in, but not before several rats made it in. “Get goin’, Joseph,” they called, as each, a rat in hand, beat its head into a side window. “Move Joseph, go!” they called, but the engine would not turn over. “I think there’s rats in the engine, Pa!” Joseph cried, the others rolling down their bloodied windows to toss out the rats they’d smashed against them. “It in gear?” Josiah shouted.
“Yeah!”
“Let me!” Josiah yelled, Joseph jumping over the driver’s seat to the back.
Josiah pumped the gas pedal, and when the engine growled, blood shot through the hood-sides, splattering the front windshield. “Damn rats! They’re all over the fan!”
“So keep goin’ Josiah!” Joseph Henry yelled. “Keep tearin’ ‘em up!”
Josiah again floored the gas, but the engine choked, and repeated pushing only produced dead clicks.
“We’re stuck,” Josiah said, as the others watched rat bellies attach themselves to the glass, starting to blot out the light.
“Pa? Pa?” the boys pleaded.
“The Lord will provide,” he responded calmly.
“Pa!”
Behind the falls in a grotto, Russell lie on his back in amorous delight, a nymph attached. Others cooed at either side of him, and on moss, another sat, her long fingers plucking the lyre she held.
“They are ugly lookin’ varmints,” Macon spit, watching the scores of rats pressing against the windows, and listening to them scratching atop the roof. “And they are God’s creatures.”
“Oh come on Pa,” his panicking eldest boys impatiently begged.
“I’m sorry I crashed the car, Pa.”
“Don’t you worry, Joseph.”
“Not worry!” Josiah called.
“Everything is part of the plan. Everything. And everybody. And every creature under The Lord’s sun.”
“Ya hear em? Hear ‘em!” Josiah called.
“They’re chewin’ through the chassis!” Joseph Henry yelled. “Wheel wells on this old car, they’re likely all rusted. Easy for ‘em to eat through!”
“Pa. Damn it, Pa!”
“Joseph Henry, your father doesn’t respond to yellin’ and cussin’, ‘specially in the house of The Lord. So you tell your brother Josiah to now press on that accelerator pedal
tap-like. Like he was testin’ a hot stove. Just a tap.”
“Josiah—”
“I heard ‘em, Joseph Henry.”
“Just a tap, Pa said. Tap.”
Josiah tapped the gas, turned the key, and the Caddy rumbled to a start. “Yahooooo!” the boys in the front called.
“Just like you said, Pa. Lord would provide,” said Joseph.
Macon nodded. The windshield wiper cleared rats from the glass. Josiah eased the Caddy into drive, revved the engine, and skidded toward the vestibule wall. “Yahoooo,” the boys called out again. “Thanks Pa. Yeah, thanks Pa,” they said relieved, the car pitching through the hole in the vestibule wall and flying over the entrance steps to bounce on the sod and tear out, rats and parts of rats continuing to expel out the undersides.
“The Lord always provides,” Macon said, taking a long deep breath.
The car kept going, stopping only to ask directions to The Enchanted Forest, which no one had heard of or at least did not understand in English, until a hooded pilgrim understood and directed them with the warning that he would advise not going into those woods.
Upon reaching the woods edge, the Earlys drove along until it looked like they’d found an entrance in the thick woodland. It was in fact where Nathan and his group had passed into the forest. However, after making little headway through the tangled vines, Macon chose to turn around “and wait for the critters eventually to come back out.”
“How long we gonna wait, Pa,” his children asked.
“Until Benevolence sends them out or tells me to go,” he replied.
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 17