by Brian Keene
“And what happens then?”
“God’s will.”
“Is that all?”
Levi shook his head. “Go shower. I’ll fix you a plate and keep it warm.”
“Okay.” Stretching, she got out of bed. “Don’t let Adam eat it all. It really smells good, and I’m starved.”
As if to prove her point, Maria’s stomach grumbled.
Blushing again, she giggled.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Levi said.
“Told you I was hungry.”
After he’d left, Maria shut the bedroom door and then stepped into the bathroom. She closed the bathroom door behind her as well, and turned on the exhaust fan. Then she began stripping off yesterday’s clothes and tossing them in the hamper.
“Gross,” she muttered as she pulled off her jeans. “These could stand up on their own at this point.”
Finished, she turned on the shower and let it run. Then she lit a vanilla-scented candle. While the water heated, she sat down on the toilet. Steam filled the bathroom, coating her body and opening her pores. Maria sighed. She already felt better and she hadn’t even cleaned up yet. She got up from the toilet, remembering not to flush because when she did while the shower was running, the water’s temperature became scalding. Then she pulled back the shower curtain and slipped beneath the spray. The hot water drummed against her scalp, soaking her hair and running down her back and breasts. It felt luxurious. She stood there for several minutes, just enjoying the sensation. She whistled and hummed. Then she grabbed her loofa and some vanilla bean body wash, and scrubbed, lathering herself in bubbles. Her stomach rumbled again as she rinsed.
Reluctantly, Maria turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She dried off quickly, wrapped her hair in a towel, and brushed her teeth. Then she got dressed. She chose a sweatshirt and jeans, and pulled her still-damp hair into a ponytail. She put on a ball cap, and then looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Maria liked what she saw. She was a new woman.
Except for the dark circles under her eyes.
“New woman, hell. I look like shit.”
She opened the bedroom door and walked out into the kitchenette, catching Adam and Levi in midconversation. Both were seated at her tiny table. Adam was polishing off what she assumed was his second plate of bacon and eggs, along with fried potatoes. A half-empty glass of water and a cup of coffee sat in front of him.
“So, anyway,” he said around a mouthful of potatoes, “those were the only three I had published. Cold As Ice, Heart of the Matter and When the Rain Comes. I started a book about the Civil War. It was supposed to be my big literary breakthrough novel. Was going to get me out of the midlist genre ghetto. Make me some real money. But I never got the chance to finish it. I guess I sort of lost my stomach for it, after…”
His voice trailed off. A shadow passed over his face.
Sensing his impending mood change, Levi tried to change the subject.
“Did they let you write in the hospital? Surely, they wouldn’t let a man of such God-given talents squander his abilities.”
Adam’s laugh was short and humorless. “Sure. They encouraged it, in fact. But they wanted me to write about what had happened, and I’d had enough of that. Everything an author writes is to some extent autobiographical. Our joys and fears, good times and bad, the people we meet in life—all of that is fodder for the muse. Especially the bad stuff. It’s like you cut open a vein and bleed out onto the page. But writing about Tara and Hylinus and the babies and Big Steve and all the rest? That wouldn’t have been bleeding for my work. It would have been a fucking hemorrhage.”
“So you didn’t write?” Levi kept his voice calm and level.
“Oh, I wrote.” Adam devoured another slice of bacon. “What little I could, with crayons and paper. But I didn’t let them see it. No way. I couldn’t. If I had, they would have made it worse on me.”
“Why? What did you write about?”
Adam leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I started a new novel. I called it, Darkest of Dark. It was all about this thing we’re fighting—He Who Shall Not Be Named.”
Levi flinched, taken aback. His hands gripped the table. His knuckles were white. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
“But how—”
“How did I know? Coincidence. I read those books. Read LeHorn’s journal. That’s all.”
“Adam,” Levi said, “tell me the truth.”
“Okay, you caught me. I wrote about it because Tara came to me in my dreams. She told me a living darkness was coming. It would sweep across the land, consuming everything in its path. A darkness that was darker than dark. Something that could not be named. But we know what the name is, don’t we, Levi? Its name is No—”
“Stop! Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t speak it out loud!”
“I’m not afraid of it!” Adam yelled, instantly changing from conversational to combative. “Not Hylinus. Not God. Not Nod—”
“Hey,” Maria interrupted, making her presence known. She sensed the tension in the air, saw which direction the conversation was heading again. Mindful of Levi’s warnings to keep Adam happy and calm, she tried to distract him. “I hope you saved some for me, Adam.”
His demeanor changed again. Smiling, he nodded, sweeping his hand above the table.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Check it out. Levi’s not too bad of a cook. He even chopped up some onions and fried them in with the potatoes.”
“I would have added peppers,” Levi said, “but I couldn’t find any.”
“I’m surprised you found what you did,” Maria said, sitting down. “I’ll have to check my fridge more often. I didn’t know all of this was in there.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Some more of your magic, Levi? Don’t tell me you conjured all this up. I’m willing to believe a lot, but that’s stretching it.”
“No magic,” he said, setting her plate down in front of her. “While the two of you were still sleeping, I walked to the store. That was where I couldn’t find the peppers.”
Maria tried a forkful of eggs. Her eyes closed and she moaned with delight.
“These are delicious.”
“I’m glad you like them. Not to rush you, but as soon as the two of you are finished, we should leave.”
“So, did you get any sleep at all?”
Levi nodded. “Enough for what needs to be done. I rested. Studied. Prepared.”
Adam pushed back from the table. “Man, that coffee tastes good. We had real weak stuff at White Rose. But I’m not used to this strong stuff. Runs right through me. May I use your bathroom before we leave?”
“Sure.” Maria pointed him toward it. “Why don’t you shower and change while you’re at it? I’m sure you want to get rid of that gown and pants.”
“Good idea. That okay with you, Levi?”
“Yes. Just please be quick.”
“Thanks.”
When she heard the bathroom door shut, and was sure he couldn’t hear them, Maria leaned close to Levi.
“You know he’s bat-shit crazy, don’t you?”
“Oh, he’s certainly disturbed. Unbalanced.”
Maria smirked. “That’s putting it mildly. He changes emotions like some women I know change clothes.”
“He’s mentally ill. But regardless, he’s telling the truth about what happened the night of the fire. About the satyr and the rest.”
“Doesn’t matter if he is—he’s still nuts.”
“Yes,” Levi sighed. “He is. The strain of what he’s been through was too much, I suppose. I’ve heard the expression ‘the mind snapped’ before, but I never really saw it in action until today.”
“So what are we still doing with him? We’ve got the book and the pages. Why keep him around? Why not just cut him loose before he freaks out on us again? The longer he’s with us, the better our chances of getting caught.”
“We can’t just let him go,” Levi explained. �
��He’s like a child in some ways. And those mood swings. He could hurt someone—or himself.”
“Then we make an anonymous tip. Drop him back off at the hospital.”
“And what happens when he tells them it was us who helped him escape?”
“What? That we burned a hole in time and space and broke him out? They’ll increase his medication and think nothing more about it.”
“Maria.” Levi sighed. “The truth is, we can’t let him go yet. We still need him.”
“For what?”
“I can’t say. The less you know, the better.”
“Why? Is it something bad?”
“God forbid you get engulfed by the entity. As soon as it leeches onto you, it not only drains your energy—it also siphons your thoughts. I can’t risk it learning of our plans before I have a chance to defeat it.”
“So what are our plans?”
“Like I said, I can’t tell you all of it. But the first thing we need to do is finish up here. Then we need to contact the own er of the Ghost Walk. This Ken Ripple. We need to ask him to consider not opening.”
Maria shook her head. “No way. He’ll never go for it.”
“We can’t let those people go into the woods. Isn’t there some way you can convince him?”
“I can try,” Maria reluctantly agreed, “but I don’t think it will do any good.”
She walked into her office, retrieved her cell phone, and scrolled through the recently called numbers. Finding Ken’s, she hit redial. On the first ring, it automatically put her into his voice mail.
“He’s not picking up,” she said. “Probably has a million things going on. They open in like four or five hours.”
“Four hours?”
“Well, yeah. When did you think it would open?”
“I assumed an attraction like this would open well after dark—eight or nine at the earliest. That gives us less time than I’d planned for. There must be another way to stop people from going into those woods.”
“We could call in a bomb threat,” Maria suggested. “Phone the police and tell them there’s a bomb somewhere on the trail.”
“Do the regional police usually react to such a situation?”
“No,” she admitted. “Takes them an hour to arrive on the scene when there’s shots fired. I can’t imagine they’d take a bomb threat seriously. If Al Qaeda ever wanted to wipe out a place with no re sistance or preparation, York County would be a prime target.”
Levi’s expression was grim. “This is my fault.”
“Maybe I could call the evangelical church. Convince the pastor and some of his parishioners to go down there and protest. Slow things down a little. Tell them the Ghost Walk is the devil’s work.”
“No,” Levi said. “Then we just put more people in harm’s way. Something like that will attract more attention, not less. We need to get going. Now.”
Maria wolfed down the rest of her breakfast while Levi told Adam to hurry up. By the time Adam was showered and dressed, the two were ready to go. Adam pulled his ball cap down low and readjusted his sunglasses.
“Think anybody will recognize me?” he asked.
“No,” Maria said, “although they might look twice, wondering who the crazy guy is wearing sunglasses at night.”
“Not me,” Adam laughed. “I’m not crazy.”
Maria bit her tongue as they walked out the door.
Levi said nothing.
They climbed into Maria’s car. Levi took the passenger seat again. Adam crawled into the back and flipped open Maria’s newspaper, which he’d appropriated from her porch step.
“I’ve been gone too long,” he mused, scanning the local section. “I need to catch up on what’s been happening.”
Maria glanced at Levi, but he stared straight ahead, still silent.
“Okay, guys,” she said, trying to sound brave. “Next stop, the Ghost Walk!”
The sun sank lower as they drove away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“But we’re not even open yet!”
“I don’t care,” Ken said, trying to refrain from shouting at the older man—Bill Goytre, a volunteer from the Lions Club. “Take a look out there in the road.”
“But it ain’t even dark. We don’t open until dark.”
“Tell that to the people who are showing up already, Bill. If we don’t have volunteers parking cars, it’s gonna be chaos. Now get your crew together and get over there in that field and start directing traffic. Please?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Bill ran off to muster his forces. Ken stared at the road in amazement. The number of cars already turning into the field was stunning—a creeping, unbroken line that stretched from the parking area to the road and beyond. Drivers wound their way through the field without direction, parking anywhere they chose.
“Jesus Christ…”
Ken hadn’t been this nervous since the night he’d proposed to Deena.
Greg Lineberger, one of the farmers who was in charge of the hayrides, approached him, leaning on a faded wooden cane. His cheek bulged with chewing tobacco.
“Looks like we’re gonna be swamped, Ken.”
“Yeah. Holy shit, they’re still coming.”
“Want us to open the trail early?”
Ken thought it over. “No, let’s stay on schedule. Wait until dusk, at least.”
“All right.” Greg looked up at the sky. “Reckon that will be soon enough anyway. The sun ain’t even set yet, but it’s already getting dark. Especially down there in the woods. Hope that doesn’t mean there’s a storm coming.”
“That’s all we need,” Ken agreed. “But no, I went online with my cell phone this afternoon and checked the weather. It’s not supposed to rain tonight.”
“Well, I’ll head on back to my tractor. You let us know when you’re ready.”
“Will do. And thanks again for your help.”
The old farmer gazed out at the snaking line of automobiles and spat tobacco juice in the grass. “Sure is an awful lot of people.”
After the old man left, Ken found that he had a rare moment of solitude. Seeing that the public was beginning to show up, most of the volunteers had gone into action. Ken massaged the back of his neck and sighed. He had a headache. He needed a beer. And there was still a lot to do. He had things to check on and phone calls to return. He’d been playing phone tag all morning with the cop investigating Sam and Rhonda’s disappearance. When they’d finally connected, the cop had assured him it was just a few routine questions. Supposedly, the detective was going to show up tonight, take the Ghost Walk, and then quickly interview him.
Ken surveyed the crowd. How the hell was the detective even going to find him with all these people? Ken couldn’t find anybody and he was the own er.
Walking back to the midway, Ken grabbed a battery-powered bullhorn and made an announcement.
“Folks, can I have your attention, please? Listen up! Can I have your attention?”
He waited for them to quiet down and focus on him.
“As you can see, we’ve got some early arrivals.”
The crowd cheered. A thunderous wave of applause rolled over him. Grinning, Ken waited for it to die down and then continued.
“We’re not opening the Ghost Walk until it’s dark enough in the woods. Shouldn’t be much longer, judging by the sky. But until then, people can buy their tickets and get in line. They can also walk the midway and check out your stands and booths. So consider this your five-minute warning. Get ready. We’ll open for business in five minutes.”
Another round of applause greeted this, along with cheers and whistles. Ken switched off the bullhorn and steeled himself.
He hoped that somewhere, somehow, Deena was watching. And if so, he hoped she was proud.
Nodens quivered in anticipation, feeling the walls thin around it.
Soon…
The forest shuddered.
“Look at this,” Maria exclaimed. “It’s unbelievable!”
>
She’d driven the same route she’d taken the night she interviewed Ken, from the city to the suburbs and then onto the rural back roads. That was where the trouble began. Southbound, there was more traffic than normal, and the closer to the Ghost Walk they got, the more congested the narrow roads became. Maria grumbled, forced to drive the speed limit, then below the speed limit, and then reduced to a crawl. Finally, traffic stopped altogether. A few drivers tried passing the congestion by driving south in the northbound lane, but after a few near misses with oncoming traffic, nobody else dared. One impatient driver honked his horn, but the rest sat patiently—families, couples, and carloads of teens, all on their way to the Ghost Walk, anticipating an evening of getting the shit scared out of them.
“Got to hand it to Ken,” Maria said. “He’s going to rake in a lot of money for charity tonight. I don’t think he had any idea it would be this big.”
“They may make a lot of money,” Levi agreed, “but they’ll never get to spend it if the living darkness is freed.”
Maria turned on the radio and switched it to a local news station. They listened to a commercial for a vacuum cleaner service and another for a steak house, and then the announcer came back on.
The top news story was Adam’s escape.
“Shit,” Adam said. “Well, I guess we knew this was coming. Wonder what they’ll say about me?”
“Listen,” Maria whispered, silencing him.
According to the newscaster, neither the local authorities nor the White Rose Mental Health Facility’s staff had been able to determine how Adam had escaped. Nor had they been able to locate him. The authorities did not know if he was still in the area, and were advising residents to be cautious. Adam was considered dangerous.
“I’m not dangerous,” he muttered in the backseat.
The announcer made a joke about how this was the perfect news story for Halloween, and then gave the weather and traffic report, including a mention of the traffic jam they were currently sitting in.