by Tom Deitz
Chapter III: The MacTyrie Gang
(Sullivan Cove, Georgia)
It took David seven minutes to cover the eight miles from the Enotah Municipal Post Office to the Sullivan Cove road—and less than five seconds to turn in there. Probably he should have at least considered slowing down before he started pulling at the steering wheel, but what the heck? A little excitement never hurt anybody. It certainly wouldn’t hurt Alec. So it was, the Mustang entered the gravel road half-sideways, with its front wheels pointing at an angle that bore no relation at all to its intended direction of travel. The tail slid wide, flirting with a ditch. A rain of small stones exploded from beneath the tires like shrapnel.
David noted Alec’s sharp intake of breath. “Coward,” he snorted derisively as he twitched the car onto its proper westward path and floored the pedal again.
“Yea, though I ride in the Mustang of Death,” Alec began shakily, “I will . . . fear for my life, I guess,” he improvised at last, grimacing at his own poetic ineptitude. Fear did things like that to him.
David ignored him. He also very pointedly refrained from glancing up the hill to his left, to his family’s farmhouse glowering across its assemblage of porches at the creek bottoms they were currently traversing. A little farther on to the right, the Sullivan Cove Church of God peeked out from a mass of oak trees. David’s favorite and namesake uncle was buried there. He didn’t look that way either.
Nor did he pay particular heed to the weathered gray planks and tin roof of Uncle Dale’s ancient dwelling in its hollow an additional half-mile up the way on the southern side.
But fortunately he did notice Gary Hudson when he topped a fairly steep rise and found his second-best buddy jogging happily down the exact middle of the road ahead of him—stark naked except for skimpy black nylon gym shorts and a pair of top-of-the-line Nikes.
David braked hard, felt the back tires skip sideways on the loose stones. The Mustang ground to a halt a hundred feet or so beyond the runner. David poked his head out the window as the boy materialized out of the cloud of red dust behind him.
“What ho, G-man?” he hollered, as Gary trotted up and braced both hands on the car’s roof, panting heavily, though he still managed to grin his famous grin: blindingly white and accompanied by the twin dimples that accented his strong, square chin and gently arching nose. His eyes were a startling blue, his close-cropped hair a forgettable brown. He was in good shape, but even so it took him a couple of seconds to catch his breath.
“Well, G-man,” David went on, “you’re certainly not the one I expected to find bouncing along out here in the wasteland. What happened—Runnerman set you out for bad behavior?”
“Negative, oh most Mad One,” Gary said between gasps. “We got to the site, found nobody there, set up camp, and decided to jog up to the highway and back. Runnerman took a wild hair about a minute ago and abandoned me.”
David stifled a giggle. “Just like him, the shit.”
“Well, he thinks nobody can run as good as he can.”
“I can,” David replied matter-of-factly.
Alec rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell you say.”
David shot him a glare that should have fried him. “Come to think of it, I could use a quick dash—need to work out some of my cane-patch stiffness. Here, McLean, you take the M.D. on in.” He stuffed the car into neutral, pulled up the hand brake, and joined Gary outside, leaving a very confused Alec sputtering ineffectual protests in the passenger seat. “You bend it, just keep on going, hear?”
Alec’s lips twitched in a sour grimace. “Oh, come on, Davy, you know I never have any luck with your clutch.”
“Now’s a good time to work on it, then!” David replied quickly. “You’ll run in the ditch before you hit anything solid.”
And then he was off, pacing the much-larger Gary stride for stride and breath for breath down the Sullivan Cove road.
They had already covered nearly fifty yards before a tremendous roar and spitting of gravel indicated that Alec had finally got the Mustang moving. An instant later, it barreled past, enveloping both of them in a haze of grit that invaded their lungs and stuck to the sweat on their bodies. David couldn’t help but giggle through his coughing fit when he saw Alec’s look of grim distress as he passed. The wind brought them the sound of gears grinding in the distance.
David winced and mouthed a silent “Damn!”
Gary saw him. “He tried to tell you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’ll make a man out of him.” He sighed resignedly and increased his pace.
“If he doesn’t make scrap metal out of a perfectly good sixty-six.”
“If he does, I’ll just kill him,” David replied with precise conviction.
“Sounds like fun,” Gary acknowledged. “Need any help, let me know. Hey—race you to the fire ring!”
In five yards David was ahead of him.
Three-quarters of a mile farther on, the road ended in a flat, circular turnaround. Golden wisps of broom sedge lined its perimeter, and a dark stain of charcoal surrounded by a rough square of logs and low boulders marked the center, token of hundreds of illicit campfires and weenie roasts. Twenty feet beyond the gravel a finger of Langford Lake invaded the land like an accusing finger, its shore embraced by twin arcs of black-green pines that reached in from either side. David’s car was parked out of the way to the right, its wheels hub-deep in coarse grass. A second series of tire tracks led northward through a couple of acres of the sedge toward the line of forest an eighth of a mile away. Dark clouds glowered to the south. They hadn’t been there earlier.
The runners slowed as they approached the car. Something white fluttered in the driver’s window—a piece of white wrapping paper, as it turned out. David ripped it off and scanned it quickly. A penciled line of Alec’s even printing showed there: I parked your car; if you want your keys back, you can park my gear. Trunk’s unlocked. P.S.: Asshole.
He handed it to Gary, who exploded into laughter as David lifted the deck lid.
“Here, guy, put that overblown bod to some use,” David said, tossing Gary the larger of the two backpacks. As an afterthought, he added his bedroll and one of the two iron-tipped hiking staffs that he and Alec always carried with them. A quick search behind the seats produced the package from Liz. He started to bring the whole thing, then changed his mind and stuffed the T-shirts into the corner of his khaki pack. An attempt at fitting the book beside them failed, so he tucked it under his arm, checked the locks one final time, and trotted off with Gary.
It was not a widely known place that they came to a moment later, having first navigated a couple hundred feet of pine forest (David couldn’t help wondering how Darrell had managed to get his van through) and then a vigorous stand of the blackberry briars that were ubiquitous to the whole southern end of the county. Fortunately, the van had dispatched the worst of them.
B.A. Beach, David had christened the open semicircle of land when he and Alec had discovered it some years before—the name signified by its initials a reminder of what he’d done to his backside the first time he’d fallen there. A layer of mossy grass covered much of the ground, and a series of rock shelves to the left overlooked a slice of beach and the lake proper. At the edge of the woods to their right, Darrell Buchanan’s tan VW van loomed like a startled bread loaf, its double doors open wide, with a bright canopy staked out between them. A tiny fire smoked before it.
The camp was empty, but David could hear occasional bursts of boisterous laughter coming from beyond the trees to the north.
He and Gary deposited their gear inside the vehicle and headed toward the woods. A curtain of laurel closed in, blocking any view of the campsite. Soon they were in the peace of the forest.
A glimmer of water fifty yards ahead showed the lake, and the sound of voices had grown louder: mindless garble, shouts and protests, giggles and loud guffaws.
Clothes began to appear: a sneaker here, a T-shirt there, then a pair of white tube socks like
shed snakeskins, converging a short way behind a break in the trees into twin piles—one neat, one in appalling disarray.
A raised finger quieted Gary just as he was about to speak. A nod acknowledged it. Soundlessly they crept toward the voices.
The land sloped gently uphill beneath them, opening at last onto a sheer bank maybe eight feet high. Directly beneath it was the only point on the whole nearby shoreline where diving was really possible. Silent as trees they peered over it.
It was them, all right: Alec and Darrell “Runnerman” Buchanan. Dark hair and light hair was all David could easily distinguish through the sparkle of sunlight on the choppy surface—Darrell’s brassy yellow, shoulder-long in the runner’s mane the Enotah County High track team affected; Alec’s mousy brown darkened to near black by water.
Darrell twisted underwater, thrust up a wiry arm in salute, then sank into the depths again, reminding David of the final scene from Deliverance. A moment later Darrell’s head broke surface. Even at that distance the flash of teeth in his foolishly handsome face was visible, stark white against his deep tan.
“Well, it if ain’t the two lost boys!” he shouted cheerily, treading water. “What took you so long? Looking for Tinkerbell? Drop your drawers and join us!”
“Didn’t waste any time, did you?” David called back.
“Well, it’s supposed to rain, for one thing,” Darrell said. “And then we remembered Hudson’s cooking tonight, so we decided now’d be better than later. That way we won’t have to worry about cramps.”
“Or look at what we’re eating,” Alec added. “That’s a hell of a lot more important.”
Gary picked up a convenient stone and tossed it into the dark water a precise foot from Alec’s open mouth.
He ducked—too late. The wave left him choking.
“So, you guys coming in, or not?”
“Didn’t bring our suits.” David laughed.
“So?”
“So what’ve you got on?”
In answer Darrell leapt as far out of the water as he could, then dove quickly forward, displaying a flash of bare white bottom.
David and Gary looked at each other and nodded once in unison.
“Just as I suspected.” Gary snickered.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” David replied haughtily, prying at the heel of one shoe with the toe of the other.
Gary knelt to remove his training shoes. “Let’s just say you have nothing, and leave it at that!”
David waited until his friend was untying his laces, then leapt onto his back, wrapping his legs around Gary’s waist and clamping his arms tight around the boy’s bulging chest and upper arms.
“Would you like to repeat that, G-Man?”
“Do you want it repeated?” came the choked reply. “If you’d like, I’ll tell everybody we know—in minute, biological detail, with approximate numbers and dimensions.” He tensed and started to stand, completely ignoring David’s weight. “If you’ve got Liz’s address, I could even mail her a description,” he continued. “Or I could take some pictures . . .”
David lost his grip and slid to the ground, bringing Gary’s gym shorts down with him. He shrieked and jerked his hands away, scrambling to his feet in embarrassed horror. “Oh, Christ, Hudson, all I need to see is your furry butt staring me in the face!”
“You asked for it, faggot!”
“You guys coming or not?” Alec shouted from below.
“Sullivan might be,” Gary called back. “I think he’s trying to rape me.”
“I’ll get you for that, Hudson,” David shot back as he hastily skinned off his T-shirt. The ring glittered on his chest. He paused, fiddling with the clasp of the silver chain that held it. It was just the slightest bit too short to pull over his head easily.
Gary eyed him curiously. “God, Sullivan, what is it with you and that blessed chain? Why don’t you just wear the damned thing?”
David’s expression darkened to one of deadly seriousness. “Because—if I wear it people get all kinds of stupid ideas, and then they start asking stupid questions, and I’m sick of answering stupid questions, okay?”
“So why bother with it at all, then?”
David rolled his eyes. “Because—because I like having it around—if that’s all right with you. I mean it really isn’t any of your business.”
Gary’s face darkened in turn, as the tone of David’s words sank in. “Okay! Okay! It’s no big deal. You never have been straight with us about that ring, though, and I’m gettin’ a little tired of it.”
“Not haven’t, Gary, can’t.”
“Bullhockey,” Gary snorted, as he trotted the few steps to the bank and dove outward.
The ring at last on his finger, David followed him very quickly.
“We stay in here any longer we’ll shrivel up to nothing,” Alec said, as David’s head broke surface beside him. Darrell and Gary had long since departed.
“I think part of me already has.” David giggled.
Alec looked disgusted. “Who could tell?”
David sent a miniature tsunami splashing toward him. “Would you like to be dead, McLean? I’ve heard enough about that already.”
Gary appeared on the bank, barefoot and shirtless, a pair of camouflage fatigues slung low across his hips. “Hey, guys, soup’s on.”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the warning.”
Gary threw a pine cone at him. “No problem, McLean, I’ll just pee in yours.”
Alec sighed and began stroking toward shore.
David glanced toward the southern horizon, saw the clouds massed there. They’d been building steadily since he’d arrived. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” he said as he set off after his friend.
“Not supposed to. Supposed to go south of here, according to the forecast,” Alec replied. “Christ, look at old Bloodtop over there!”
David felt an anticipatory chill race over him, even as he glanced over his shoulder.
Half a mile away a mountain rose from the surface of the lake. Bloody Bald it was called, though David knew it by another name as well. In the Faery realm that mountain bore a castle, and that castle was the home of Lugh Samildinach, High King of the Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og. Usually it looked like an ordinary mountain—was an ordinary mountain as far as most men were concerned. But sometimes it was much, much more: sometimes at dusk and dawn the glamour between was stripped away and he could see what really crowned that summit. Sometimes, too, he could hear horns calling there.
But this was nothing so remarkable.
It was a simple trick of light—the very one that had given the mountain its name, in fact, for the westering sun had caught the pale silicon surfaces that slashed its vertical faces, and had lit them with its own blazing glory, painting them red from top to water’s edge, so that the whole peak seemed awash with bloody fire. The mountains behind had fallen into shadow, darkened by the approaching clouds, and Bloody Bald shone like a sentinel of light before them. And then a cloud brushed the sun and the effect was gone.
“Geez,” Alec said. “For a minute there, I thought I’d had a glimpse of Faerie.”
David shook his head as he joined him on the shore. “Not this time, my lad; sometimes this world has its own magic.” He reached for the rope they had tied there for the purpose, and hauled himself up the bank, realizing only then that he hadn’t brought a towel. Have to use my shirt, I guess, he thought, tugging at the ring. Soon as I put this back on its chain.
Five minutes later he and Alec pushed through the last of the laurel and joined their friends at the campsite. The fire had been built up a little, and a pile of steaming hamburger patties was arranged on a foil-covered rack beside it. A cooler full of beer stood open by one of the awning poles. Gary and Darrell had their backs to them and were occupied with something inside the van.
“Well, smells good, anyway—” David began, his jaws clenching in sudden outrage as he saw what occupied his friends’ attention. “Dammit, guys, tha
t’s personal!” he cried, dashing forward.
Gary spun around and stuffed something behind his back, then changed his mind and held it out accusingly. “Yeah, Sullivan, right. Real personal. Look, what is this shit about other worlds and all? I mean, look at this!” He thrust the note from The Fairy-faith straight into David’s face.
David reached for it, but Gary snatched it away. “You can read, Hudson. What does it sound like?”
“Sounds like a bunch of crap, my man. Either that, or your woman’s gone stark, raving bonkers.”
David’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Just give me the note, okay?”
“No way, man! Not till you tell us what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on. Absolutely nothing—except that you’re standing between me and my property.”
Gary stuck the paper in his hip pocket and stood up very much straighter, his arms folded across his outthrust chest. “You gonna do something about it?”
David started forward, but Gary blocked him with one stiffened arm. “Dammit, Gary, don’t do this to me!”
“I ain’t doing nothing, Sullivan. Just trying to get some straight answers out of you. It’s not like we haven’t been patient.”
“Like what happened to you last summer that had you so weirded out?” Darrell put in, moving to stand beside Gary, thereby blocking the entrance to the van. “Like why were you so vague and drifty all last fall? Like how come your brother and uncle were so sick, and then healed all of a sudden—in one night, so I hear.”
“Yeah, Sullivan, spill it. We’ve waited a year, and all we’ve got is some weird shit your brother’s supposed to have told at church about a dog talking to him, or something. And some stuff about shiny people in the woods.”
“And a boy in white,” Darrell added.
David’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you know about that!”
Gary and Darrell exchanged troubled glances. “Tell him, Runnerman.”