“That’s just not possible, Major,” said Reilly gently.
“Not possible yet,” Wren spoke up. She had been thinking about how she wanted this to go down, and she thought that she could get Major to cooperate if she explained everything to him. “But if you really are innocent—”
“I am,” said Major.
“Then you’re going to get out, and the best way to do that is to help us find Hawk,” said Wren.
“How’s that going to help?” said Major. “You think Hawk is going to admit to what he did? Because he’s not. He’ll blame it on me, or he’ll blame it on someone else. Hell, I bet he was blaming that new body you were talking about on someone. Maybe even you.”
Wren flinched. Major knew Hawk a little too well.
“Well, listen, you’ve been arrested,” said Reilly. “You’re in the system now, and it’s not so easy to get you out.”
“What we were trying to set up wouldn’t have been a release anyway,” said Wren. “We were trying to get you, like, a day pass, so that you could come out in the woods with us and show us where the house is.”
“That’s all?” Major sat back in his chair, looking distraught. “I’m going to go to jail for the rest of my life for this, aren’t I? Damn Hawk. I hate that bastard.”
“If we find him, you won’t,” said Wren.
“It won’t even matter,” muttered Major. “Hawk’s too smart. He’s got it all figured out.”
“Hawk may be smart,” said Wren, “but he’s got a big liability.”
“What’s that?” said Major.
“He’s compulsive,” said Wren.
“Like he can’t stop?” said Major.
Wren nodded. “He kept killing after we locked you up, and he couldn’t keep himself from following his rituals. If he can’t stop, he’s going to be caught. And when he does, you’re going to go free. Now, come on, Major. Talk to us. Think about how to get to that house.”
“But I told you already,” said Major. “You have to go out toward where the crazies live.”
“What are you talking about, the crazies?” said Wren. “No one lives in those woods.”
“They do,” said Major.
“Did you see them while you were tripping on acid?” said Reilly flatly.
“They’re real!” Major insisted, turning on Reilly.
Wren shot Reilly a look.
Major thought about this for a minute, chewing on his bottom lip. “You know who might now where our house is?”
“Who?” said Wren.
“Roger Green,” said Major.
“Roger Green?” said Wren. “He hasn’t been back in the compound in years.”
“He came by once. We went out to the house in the woods together to do mushrooms.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know,” said Major. “A few years back. Devon was back with him too, but she said she didn’t mess with hallucinogens anymore. Said her mind was plenty open.”
“But no one knows where Roger is. He drew a bunch of weird pictures on the wall of his apartment and split.”
“Wait, did we talk to Roger Green?” said Reilly.
Wren nodded at him. “Yeah, we did.”
“That place in Baltimore?”
“Yeah.”
“He’d be with Devon,” said Major.
“He’s not with Devon,” Wren explained. “They broke up.”
“Well, that can’t be.” Major made a face. “Why does everyone break up? Can’t anyone stay together these days?”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Listen, Major—”
“Maybe he would have gone to Cumberland.”
“Cumberland?” said Wren. “Cumberland, Maryland?”
“Yeah,” said Major. “You remember how David Song talked about that camping ground he stayed at in Cumberland?”
Wren furrowed her brow. “No.”
“You have to remember,” said Major. “It was this big sermon thing he gave on sanctuary and finding what you needed right when you needed it?”
Wren shook her head.
“He was driving along the interstate,” said Major, “and he was on his own. It was before he found the Children. He didn’t have anywhere to go. And he prayed to the Lord for help. Immediately, he saw a sign for Hidden Gap Campground.”
Wren squinted. “Okay, maybe I kind of vaguely remember this. Did he get there and the car ahead of him paid for his camping fee for the night?”
“Yes!” Major nodded excitedly.
“But what does this have to do with Roger Green?” said Reilly.
“Well, fifteen years ago, after Vivian was arrested, a lot of people fled the compound,” said Major. “They didn’t have anywhere to go, and they went looking for the campground where David Song had stayed. It was still there. So, it’s a place that people go, members of the Fellowship, anyway. When they need someplace, they go there.”
* * *
“Well, I guess we’re driving to Cumberland today,” said Reilly as they left the jail.
“Yeah, that’ll take up the rest of the day for sure,” said Wren. “It’s a long drive.”
“I think it’s only maybe an hour and a half,” said Reilly. “Two tops.” He considered. “But there and back, yeah, it’ll be a haul. Not as bad as driving to Richmond, though.”
“True,” said Wren.
“You think it’s possible that Hawk could have gone to this campground?”
“Maybe,” said Wren.
“Honestly, it’s a long shot that Roger Green’s even there,” said Reilly. “And say we find him, then what? We ask him to show us where the crazies are in the woods?”
Wren sighed. “You’re right, it’s stupid. This whole thing is stupid. Maybe we should try to put a team together, like you said, just go combing the woods for Hawk.”
Reilly considered, tossing his car keys back and forth in his hands for several minutes. “Well, we don’t know where Hawk is, and that house in the woods is our one lead. If this guy can get us out there, we should look for him. But maybe before we drive to Cumberland, we should get in touch with that Devon person, just make sure they haven’t made up?”
* * *
“Wren Delacroix?” said Devon’s voice over the phone. “I asked you to call me if it turned out that Roger was killing those girls. But you arrested someone else.”
“It’s not about that,” said Wren. “Well, it sort of is, but we don’t suspect Roger of anything. We are trying to find him, though.”
“I think he’s in Cumberland,” said Devon.
“You’re in touch with him?”
“Well, I wanted to give him the option of knowing his baby,” said Devon. “I felt like it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t interested in getting back together with him or anything, but I thought that it wasn’t right to keep a father from his son.”
“So, it’s a boy?” said Wren, smiling. “Congrats.”
“Thanks,” said Devon. “Yeah, a little boy named Granger.”
“How cute,” said Wren.
“Anyway, as it turns out, Roger wasn’t much interested in the kid,” said Devon. “What he was interested in was asking me for money. He gave me an address where I could send it. He’s living in some house downtown with a bunch of other losers. I think he’s selling drugs.” She sighed.
“So, he’s not at the Hidden Gap Campground?”
“He was. That’s how he ended up in Cumberland. But then he made some friends and moved out. Anyway, I’ll give you the address if you want.”
“Yeah, thanks,” said Wren. “That would be helpful.”
* * *
The drive to Cumberland did take nearly two hours. They had to go up to Hagerstown to get on I-70 and take that to I-68. As they drove, they talked about whether or not they thought that Roger was going to want to help them look around in the woods for Hawk, and they determined that he wasn’t going to go for it.
But since he’d asked Devon for money, they decided to bribe him.
>
“We can just promise him money,” said Wren.
“What if that’s not enough?” said Reilly. “What if he needs to see the cash? I think it’s going to be more effective if the money’s right there.”
“You’re not going to give it to him right away, are you?”
“No, not yet. I’ll wait until after he takes us to Hawk.”
“Well, then, just promise it to him. We don’t have cash on us anyway.”
“I can go to an ATM,” said Reilly. “This is a totally reimbursable expense. Paying off informants is sometimes necessary. I’ll get it out of discretionary funds.”
“That’s the money you use to pay me, right?” said Wren.
“I don’t use all of it to pay you,” said Reilly.
“Right,” said Wren.
When they got off the interstate, they wound through the one-way streets of Cumberland to find an ATM, and then they went looking for Roger. If it hadn’t been for the GPS on the phone, they’d both have been lost. The small city had once been a booming place of industry, but all the industry had gone away. The city remained, even if it wasn’t bustling or growing these days.
Finally, they reached the address. It was a white house, though the paint was peeling in places, set up on a hill above the street. There were steps up the tiered front lawn, leading to the door.
They climbed and knocked.
A young woman answered the door. She was wearing a shapeless tie-dyed dress and her hair was dyed bright orange. “Yeah?”
“We’re looking for Roger Green,” said Wren, stepping forward.
“Um… Roger, yeah,” said the woman. She stepped aside to let them in. There was a red shag carpet on the floor. It looked as though it had seen better days. The woman leaned back her head and yelled. “Roger!”
“What?” yelled a voice from within.
“You got company,” yelled the woman.
A long pause, and then Roger appeared at the top of the steps. He looked them over. “You two.”
“Us,” said Wren.
“We just want to talk,” said Reilly.
“We need your help,” said Wren.
“We’ll pay,” said Reilly.
Roger’s eyebrows went up at that. He slowly descended the steps. “Let’s talk in the living room.” He gestured.
They followed the red carpet into an adjoining room. It did have a couch in it, a sagging black sectional. But that was the only piece of furniture in the room. The walls were bare except for a TV that was mounted to the wall.
None of them sat on the couch.
Roger folded his arms over his chest and surveyed them. “What did you mean, pay?”
“First things first,” said Reilly. “Do you remember going back to the compound in Cardinal Falls a few years back and going out into the woods with Major Hill and Hawk Marner?”
“You trying to get me to admit to something?”
“No, we don’t care about the mushrooms,” said Wren. “We care about the house in the woods. We need to get there. Were you there or not?”
“Yeah, okay, I was there,” said Roger. “What’s that matter?”
“Could you get us back out there?” said Wren.
Roger thought about this. “Well, it wasn’t hard, exactly. There was a path. But finding the path… well, that could be tricky. Besides, I don’t want to go back there. That time I went back there and saw Hawk, it wasn’t good. Hawk said these things to me… I don’t know if I’ve been right since.”
“Well, we’ll be with you,” said Wren. “Nothing will happen.”
“You wouldn’t be any match against the things that would try to get me,” said Roger.
“Uh, I’m a cop,” said Reilly. “Wren has some FBI training. We’re not pushovers by any means.”
“You can’t fight the supernatural,” said Roger. “You can’t fight the Crimson Ram.”
Wren and Reilly exchanged a glance.
“He’s stronger out in those woods,” said Roger. “And with those murders of those girls, what you were talking to me about before? Sacrifices to him, I bet. He’s even stronger.”
“You’ll be safe,” said Reilly. “We won’t be alone.”
“We won’t?” said Wren.
“We’ll bring some uniforms,” said Reilly.
“Oh, I guess we would do that,” said Wren.
“I don’t know,” said Roger.
“We’ll pay,” said Reilly again. He got the money out of his pocket. Counted it.
Roger swallowed. “You’d give all that?”
Reilly nodded. “Absolutely. As soon as we get to that house in the woods, it’s all yours.”
Roger lifted his chin. “Okay, then.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“What was that?” said Officer Anderson.
“Something in the woods,” said Wren. “Could be anything. Could be an animal. Could be the wind.”
“Could be Hawk Marner,” said Anderson.
Wren and Reilly were out in the woods the following day with two backup uniforms, who Wren only knew as Anderson and Miller, and with Roger Green, who wasn’t taking well to being in the woods.
“It’s probably him,” breathed Roger. He was in the lead, because he was supposed to be showing them the way through the woods, but he was pretty timid. He’d stopped several times already, not due to noises, but due to things he “felt” in the air that freaked him out. Only the promise of the money drove him onward.
“That’s what I think,” said Anderson.
“He doesn’t mean him, like Hawk him,” said Wren.
“What’s he mean then?” said Miller.
“Oh, you know,” said Reilly. “He means a great horned creepy god that wants sacrifices and stuff.”
“I’m checking it out,” said Anderson.
“Fine,” said Reilly. “Probably a good idea.”
Anderson took off in the direction of the sound, wading through the undergrowth in the woods. Most of the trees had lost their leaves at this point, and the undergrowth was dying off for the autumn too, so there wasn’t too much to wade through. Even still, it wasn’t long before the forest swallowed him up, and they couldn’t see him anymore.
They weren’t on any kind of discernible path, at least not that Wren could see. This was a part of the woods that Wren had never been in. It was up near the northern part of the compound, back behind the meeting house. The spot where the girls had been killed had been in the south, near the fire pit. She wasn’t familiar with any part of the forest at all, though.
She’d never played out here as a kid. None of them had. When they were away from the compound, out near their schools, forests seemed like exciting adventure-filled places to explore. But here, this forest… it was different. Something about it made her feel cold all over.
She didn’t much like being in here now, and she wasn’t too confident that Roger was going to be able to lead them anywhere. He wanted that money pretty bad. He could easily be only pretending to know where the house was.
Sure, Reilly had told him he wouldn’t get the money until he showed them where the house was, but Reilly also had the money on him. He’d shown it to Roger. So, it was possible that Roger might attack Reilly, go for the money. It could be bad.
Wren needed to keep an eye on Roger, make sure he didn’t try anything.
Right then, Roger was looking around, turning in a tight circle, glancing every which way, as if he thought that he’d be attacked at any moment himself. Maybe he wasn’t anything to worry about after all.
“What the hell?” Reilly said. “What’s keeping Anderson?”
“Maybe it’s the crazies,” said Roger quietly.
“What?” said Wren, turning on him. “What about the crazies?”
“They live around here,” said Roger. “They used to be one with us, but they were overtaken by the Horned Lord. He took their sanity, and he forced them to live like beasts.”
“Um? One with us?” said Wren.
&nb
sp; “In the Fellowship,” said Roger. “They used to be Vivian’s favorites. But then they betrayed her. They betrayed the Horned Lord.”
Reilly raised his voice. “Anderson? You find anything?”
There was no response.
Except Wren felt as though the wind picked up deliberately, blowing the dry, dead leaves up from the ground. The fingers of the breeze came for her, penetrating her clothes, clawing at the back of her neck. In spite of herself, she shivered.
“I fucking hate it in these woods,” she muttered.
Miller spoke up. “We should have brought walkies.” The uniforms always had walkie-talkies, but they were anchored to the radios in their cars. They’d decided to ditch them because they’d be too deep in the woods to talk to dispatch.
“To talk to each other,” said Reilly. “Right. That would have been smart. But we, apparently, are idiots.” He bowed his head, and spoke more to himself that anyone else, “Sure, let’s go into the woods with a guide who’s afraid of a scary antlered god. Sure, let’s split up when we hear a strange noise.” He raised his gaze to look at them. “All right, after Anderson, all of us together. This isn’t turning into The Hills Have Eyes on my watch.”
“Oh, fuck no,” said Miller. “You ever notice how cops always get killed first in those kinds of movies?”
“I have,” said Reilly, giving him a grim smile. He stalked off into the woods.
Wren started after him.
“That’s not the way,” said Roger.
“We have to get Anderson,” said Reilly.
“That’s not the way.” Roger’s voice was getting shrill.
“Um…” Wren stopped. “Maybe we should listen to him.”
“We’re not splitting up,” Reilly called back. “And we need to get to Anderson. Come on.”
“I’m starting to wonder if these crazies aren’t exactly hallucinations,” Wren called.
“Yeah?” said Reilly. “You think?”
“So, it’s probably not a good idea to go over there.”
Reilly stopped walking and turned to face her. “You want to leave Anderson to these crazies?”
She sighed. She turned to Roger. “Come on, Roger.”
“No,” said Roger.
“Reilly’s got a gun,” said Wren. “Miller’s got a gun. And we can shoot the crazies, can’t we?”
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