Ghost Walk

by Brian Keene

  Her wanderings had then brought her to the edge of the forest. The coyote sneaked through the backyard of a nearby farm house. She was careful. Cautious. The sounds of humans came from inside the home. The coyote stayed alert, listening for any sign that they were aware of her presence. After deciding it was safe, she crept undetected to the front porch. A fat, yellow cat lay on a lawn chair, licking its paws. The coyote’s muscles coiled. She tensed, preparing to charge, but the feline spotted her and leapt from the porch. The coyote dashed after her fleeing prey, across the yard and down a one-lane dirt road. Trees lined both sides of the driveway, but the terrified cat ran straight. The chase ended when the cat ran out into the main road and was crushed beneath the wheels of a tractor-trailer. The truck didn’t stop. The coyote watched from the bushes along the side. Twitching, the cat let out a pitiful, gurgling mewl. Then it stiffened and lay still. Steam rose from the body. The coyote stepped forward, drooling at the sight and scent of the fresh innards splattered all over the pavement— the rich liver, the tender intestines, an eyeball, warm blood. Before she could feast, another car came along. Then another. Their wheels thumped over the carcass, further spreading the gore. The coyote darted out into the road and snagged a shred of intestine, but oncoming headlights chased her back into the bushes again. Not wishing to suffer the same fate as her prey, the coyote left the area.

  She came across a deserted campground and knocked over the garbage cans, snorting through their spilled contents with her snout. She found a few scraps—French fries, a pizza crust, and half of a hot dog—but not nearly food enough to sate her hunger.

  The coyote felt sad—a lingering shame that couldn’t be cured with sleep or food or water. She was a hunter. Her kind were predators, unmatched by any other animal in these woods except for the black bear. And yet here she was now, nothing more than a scavenger. No better than a raccoon or a possum, stealing from trash cans, eating humanity’s refuse just to survive. Every year, the humans came farther into the woods, chasing away the other wildlife, and reducing her kind to this.

  She missed her mate. She’d met him during her second winter, when the moon was full and yellow and new-fallen snow covered the ground. The scent of her heat had called him to her. He was strong and lean and large, standing over the other males that answered her call. She remembered his pelage colors: gray washed with streaks of black, with beautiful tan and reddish markings running down his legs. His ears had been erect and his tail full.

  They’d rutted on the frozen ground, their body heat melting the snow around them. The coyote howled her passion to the full moon when her mate’s teeth nipped the back of her neck, holding her in place. Four months later, safe in their den beneath an overturned tree, she gave birth to a litter of seven pups. Her mate had gone hunting while she nursed and cleaned their young. He’d paused along the stream bank, looking back at them once over his shoulder. He had seemed so proud.

  Then, while she waited for him, the human thunder that was different from sky thunder echoed across the forest. She knew what that thunder brought with it.

  Her mate never returned. She waited four days, but he never came back.

  She’d raised the pups on her own, as best she could, teaching them how to hunt and track, where to shelter and when to sleep, what was good to eat and what would make them sick. Most important, she taught them about man.

  So, when men arrived a few months later, and shot her with something that made her sleepy, the mother coyote’s last thought before losing consciousness was that her cubs would escape. They’d know to run. To flee from man, just as she’d taught them.

  When she awoke, there was a small metal clamp in her ear, and her young were gone. She sniffed around the forest floor. Their scent was mixed with the stench of humans. She cried out for them but there was no answer. The coyote waited but her cubs didn’t return. They had vanished. Just like her mate.

  She missed their yips, barks, and howls. Missed their warmth. The way they crawled all over her when they were playing. How they tugged at her ears with their sharp little teeth or snuggled against her when it rained. Their individual scents.

  Scent…

  The coyote’s memories faded as she caught the scent of blood again. It was stronger this time. Perhaps an injured deer or a wounded dog. It was too heavy, too thick, to be from anything smaller. Whatever the source, it was near.

  But so was something else. Something without a scent. Something…dangerous.

  She just didn’t know what.

  Parting the field grass, she peered into the woods. The coyote’s nocturnal prowling had brought her here, to the edge of a bad place. She had never been here before, had never strayed so far from her usual area. But after the failed cat hunt, she’d smelled the blood and followed it. Now she felt alarmed. This place was wrong. Menacing. She knew it instinctively, as did the rest of the animals in the area. The trees were different. The air was different. It was dangerous to proceed.

  And yet, the blood-smell called to her, promising a feast if only she would enter.

  Whimpering, the coyote stepped out of the field and into the shadow of the trees. She sniffed the air, cautious. Now she caught a new scent in addition to the blood: burning leaves. She paused, but sensed no signs of fire. Her ears twitched, alert for the slightest sign of activity. The forest was quiet. No birdsongs or insect conversations. The ground vibrated slightly beneath her paws, as if something deep inside the earth was turning. It felt unnatural. Not of man, but not of nature either. This was something else, something that was neither. The coyote wanted to run. Instinct and common sense told her to flee, but her stomach rumbled. She took another tentative step forward, and raised her snout. The woods smelled like humans. There had been many of them here recently. Signs of their presence were everywhere: downed trees, gasoline and sweat, urine, footprints, threads from clothing snagged on branches. She considered this new information. The humans had been here, and nothing bad had befallen them. Perhaps the danger was overstated.

  She smelled the blood again. It was fresh. The coyote drooled. Hunger overrode her caution. She darted forward, following the scent toward the center of the forest.

  While Rhonda got rid of the car, Richard went hunting. He traveled far to find a deer, since they were afraid to enter the proximity of the hollow. He’d left the forest, crossed through the harvested remnants of soybean and corn fields, and found another patch of woods where the game was plentiful. He climbed a tree and perched among the branches, patiently waiting. When a doe finally appeared, he shot her through the neck. The crack of the rifle echoed over the hills. The doe thrashed and snorted as her lifeblood jetted from her body. Then he hauled the dead animal back to the hollow. He gutted the carcass and spread the entrails and internal organs all over one of the sigils, careful not to touch the stone directly. Using the barrel of his rifle, he wedged the animal’s heart between the ground and the stone. He grunted in frustration. How much easier would this be if Nodens had the strength to move the stones itself? If Nodens could just use the rifle to pry them free? But the sigils sapped Nodens of its strength, and thus, it had to rely on these methods.

  Rhonda arrived shortly after, dripping with the stink of the river. Finished with his task, Richard disposed of the deer’s body. He dragged it far away and buried it, digging the grave with his hands. After he’d returned, his fingers torn and bleeding, Richard withdrew into hiding, along with Rhonda and Sam.

  They watched from the darkness, waiting for something to take the bait.

  The coyote’s uneasiness grew with every step, but so did the gnawing in her stomach. Her nose twitched again. Her tail hung limp and low, tucked firmly between her legs. Her senses warned her to flee, but she couldn’t. She was compelled now. Driven. No matter how strong her fear, she couldn’t ignore the promise of the meal, borne on the night breeze. It was waiting for her just ahead.

  She padded across a vast wasteland of ash and charred wood. The ground sloped steadily downward into th
e burned-out remnants of a hollow. She stepped over a dry creek bed filled with ashes. It was dark here—darker than the rest of the woods. In this place, the night seemed to gather, as if drawing together. It reminded the coyote of her den beneath the overturned tree. The place she’d shared with her litter and her mate. The hollow was like that—a den for darkness.

  The coyote felt far from home.

  She turned to flee, to find safer ground, but then she saw it. A pile of fresh deer innards lay splattered on and around a nearby rock. Liver, kidneys, intestines—all covered in a thick, rich coating of blood. The guts were no longer steaming, but the flies had yet to discover the remains and the blood was still fluid, rather than congealed.

  Dispensing with caution, the coyote approached the rock in four quick strides. It didn’t occur to her to wonder where the rest of the corpse was. Her pink-white tongue shot out, lapping experimentally at some drops of blood on the nearby ground. She licked her lips, and then dug in, chewing and swallowing as fast as she could. Famished, she ravaged the organs without thought or care to anything other than filling her belly. When she’d consumed the solids, she licked the rock clean. It wiggled back and forth at her ministrations, and made her tongue tingle. She barely noticed. Her attention was focused on another morsel sticking out partially from beneath the stone.

  The deer’s heart.

  She pawed at the ashen ground, digging a hole around the heart. Then she pushed at the rock, straining hard until it toppled out of the way, revealing a small depression. She gobbled down the heart in four quick bites and was swallowing the last shred when the darkness rose out of the hole and she heard her mate and cubs.

  They called for her inside the swirling blackness. Mesmerized by this unexpected reunion, she stepped closer, yipping with excitement. Too late, the coyote realized that although they looked like her brood, their smell was different. She froze.

  This was the something else—the bad thing she’d sensed before.

  The darkness surged toward her and the coyote howled.

  And then the sun greeted a new day, filling the land with light.

  But the light did not penetrate the hollow.

  There were only three stones left and less than forty-eight hours until the walls between worlds collapsed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “This is fucking bullshit.”

  Maria sat in her car, in the parking lot outside the White Rose Mental Health Facility, talking on her cell phone to her editor, Miles. Despite the fact that it was late October, it was a warm day. The sun beat down through the windshield, and Maria had rolled down her window. She was tired and the fresh air kept her awake.

  “What can I tell you?” Miles said. “Come on. Did you really think you could just walk into a security hospital and speak with the guy?”

  “No.” Maria pouted. “Not right away, at least. But I didn’t know I’d have to go through all of this crap.”

  Miles laughed. “Listen, kiddo—”

  “I hate it when you call me that. It’s demeaning.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. And I’m not pissed at you. I’m just disappointed. I even called in a few favors with some contacts in the medical system.”

  “And?”

  “No dice.”

  “Maria, it’s very tough for a reporter—any reporter—to legitimately get an interview with a patient in one of these facilities, let alone a freelancer for a local rag like ours. The last thing any psychiatric hospital wants is publicity. They don’t want a reporter sniffing around. They’re like a methadone clinic or a group home; they want to stay nestled in communities without people even knowing they exist. They like things kept quiet.”

  “But I’m not writing about them. I’m writing about Adam Senft.”

  “No therapist, and certainly no administrator, wants their patient exploited for a news story. I mean, can you imagine that headline? ‘Satyr Killer Still Believes Wife Was Pregnant with Anti-Christ.’ There’s no way they’d give a reporter free rein with something like that. And you’re not even there as a reporter. This isn’t on behalf of us. This is for a true-crime book you want to write.”

  “I know,” Maria said. “I’m sorry.”

  After her late-night dinner with Ken Ripple, Maria had returned home and found herself too wired to sleep. Instead of just lying in bed, tossing and turning, she got up and made herself a fresh pot of coffee. While it brewed, she set her iPod for random play. Then, armed with a cup of coffee and a can of Red Bull, she banged out the first draft of the feature article on the Ghost Walk while Usher sang in the background. The article clocked in at just over three thousand words—perfect for what Miles wanted. Finished with that and still wide-awake, she’d gone online and tried to track down Ramirez, the former police detective who’d been involved with Adam Senft and the last spate of murders in LeHorn’s Hollow. She was disappointed to learn that he’d apparently dropped completely off the grid. His last known address was in Florida, where he’d been working as a security guard for a private firm. Two early morning phone calls confirmed that he was no longer employed with the company, and that he’d moved out of his apartment six months ago and had left no forwarding address. There was a possibility that she could still find him—access driver’s records, employer databases, things like that. But doing so would take time, and the star of her story—Adam Senft—was right here in town. Plus, even if she did track Ramirez down, there was no guarantee he’d consent to be interviewed, or that he even had any pertinent information. She decided to find Ramirez later, and focus on Senft instead. She put out a few feelers to several of her contacts in law enforcement and private investigation, letting them know she was interested in information regarding Ramirez’s whereabouts. Then, still unable to sleep, she’d revised the Ghost Walk piece and e-mailed it to Miles. Finally, she’d showered, ate breakfast, chugged another Red Bull, and drove to the White Rose Mental Health Facility.

  Where she’d hit a brick wall—rebuffed by the receptionist and ignored by the officials. When she raised a stink, she was escorted out by a smiling, uniformed guard.

  “Can’t you pull some strings for me, Miles? Isn’t there somebody we can talk to?”

  “No, there isn’t. And even if there was, it would still take time. First, we would have to get in direct contact with Senft and find out if he wants to be interviewed.”

  “I know. They just told me that. They said I’d have to put in a request to get on his visitor’s list and that could take up to two weeks.”

  “And they’re right,” Miles said. “But it would probably take even longer than that. Trust me. I know these things.”

  “How?”

  “I’m an editor. I know everything.”

  Maria smiled, but refused to let him hear her laugh.

  “Patients at mental hospitals,” Miles continued, “even murderers like Adam Senft, retain most of their rights. They can have visitors, but the tricky part is that all visitors, even their family members, have to be approved by the medical staff. This guy is criminally insane. His life hangs on the thread of a committee of professionals who decide when he can get off the ward, for how long, when he can go outside the facility, see a movie, visit the park. Whatever. So let’s say you contact Senft. You send him a letter, ask to be added to his visitor’s list, and arrange to interview him. And let’s say he agrees—”

  “He will.”

  “Say he does. Senft then has to take the request to his treatment team. We’re talking a psychologist, social worker, behavioral analyst, unit director, head of security, and a doctor or nurse. All of these people have to determine whether or not the visit would be detrimental to his current treatment plan. You know how long that would take?”

  Maria sighed. “A lot longer than two weeks.”

  “Exactly. And that’s just if Senft agrees to the interview. He might not, you know. If he wants to get discharged eventually, he wouldn’t want to make waves.”

  �
��But I could get him to consent to an interview. I know I could.”

  “And maybe you could. God knows you’ve convinced me to do stuff for you in the past. Things I took a lot of heat for. But even if you did convince him, there’s still no guarantee. Even if you get past the treatment committee, you then have to face the judge who was originally involved in the case. And he’s the one who is ultimately responsible for letting these people back into the community, so you can bet your byline that he’s going to have something to say about it. Senft’s lawyer would be involved, too—if he even has the money to afford a lawyer. State lawyers never get involved with things like this.”

  “He was a novelist,” Maria pointed out. “He’s got money.”

  “He was a midlist paperback genre writer. They get paid even less than you do. And whatever assets he did have are probably frozen. Either that, or they got sold to pay for his defense the first time around. His publisher isn’t going to help him out. But let’s say some well-meaning fan pays for his lawyer, and the lawyer convinces the judge to consider your request. Then you’ve got the hospital and their lawyers stepping in to ask the judge, ‘Why do you want a raving lunatic with paranoid delusions about half human, half goat monsters running around York County impregnating housewives to speak to a reporter?’ End of interview, Maria.”

  “Goddamn it…”

  “On top of that, there’s HIPPA regulations—those forms the doctors make you sign guaranteeing confidentiality? Those get taken very seriously. Technically, the staff can’t even confirm they have any particular patient in the facility without that patient’s signed consent.”

  “I know,” Maria said. “They gave me that song and dance earlier, until the receptionist let it slip that Senft was there.”