On the way back to school, Billy pointed out a brand new black Cadillac, sparkling in the midday sun as it made its way up Main Street.
“Wow, what a car,” E.L. said.
“Wonder who owns that baby,” said Junior.
“Probably some rich guy staying up at Pitch Place,” Jackie said.
“What’s Pitch Place?”
“You seen that mansion up on Seeker’s Mountain?” Jackie said.
“Yeah?”
“That’s Pitch Place. Some old guy named Pitch built it a long time ago. He’s hardly ever there, but a bunch of his rich friends pop in and out all year ‘round.”
“Yeah,” Junior said, a small measure of pride lacing his voice. “We’ve even had the governor of West Virginia up there.”
“Why do they call it Seeker’s Mountain?” E.L. asked.
“I think because the first people to settle here came seeking a better life, or some shit like that,” Jackie said. “I don’t think anybody really knows.”
“I heard it was a posse searching for some convict a long time ago,” Junior said. “They were called the Seekers.”
“Yeah, right,” Jackie said. He’d never heard that, therefore, he concluded, Junior must be wrong.
By this time, the boys were at the bottom of the hill, starting up a street that would lead them back to school.
“Hold up a minute!” somebody called out, the boys turning just in time to see Gary Harbus running toward them.
“Y’all ready to go see Old Stone Face?” Harbus asked when he reached them. (Harbus, Billy, E.L. and Junior had all been placed in Vonda Peter’s fourth period English class.)
“Ready or not, you still gotta go, don’t you?” Jackie said.
“Oh, gee. Beg my pardon, Jackie. I surely didn’t mean to upset you.”
“All right now,” Jackie said. “Don’t make me sick Earl on you again.”
“Fuck him, and fuck you too,” Harbus said, quickening his pace, reaching the top of the hill before the others, turning the corner and returning seconds later with a frantic look on his face. “Shit, man! Earl’s on the front stairs, pacing back and forth like a bull!”
“So what?” E.L. said.
“So what? He’s gonna kick our asses. That’s so what!”
“Harbus,” E.L. said. “If you don’t stop letting people push you around, you’re gonna end up getting picked on for the rest of your life… Is that what you want?”
“What I want is not to get my scrawny little ass kicked!”
E.L. sighed. “Jesus,” he said.
“Look,” Jackie said. “I admire you being brave and all, but Earl Butler is one tough, mean, son of a bitch. He will beat the holy hell out of you.” He hated to think E.L. was just going to walk right up the front steps and sacrifice himself to Earl. “Maybe you and Harbus should go down the hill and head around the back way.”
“Nah,” E.L. said. “We do that, we’ll just be putting it off ‘til next time.”
“At least you wouldn’t get beat up,” Billy said.
“We’re not worried, are we, Gary?”
“My ass!” Harbus called out, and took off running for the school’s rear entrance.
They reached the top of the hill and rounded the corner, and there was Earl Butler, just like Harbus said: pacing back and forth like an enraged bull getting ready to charge.
“Remember what I said. Punch him in the nose as hard as you can,” Jackie said. “He’ll still beat the shit out of you, but he probably won’t mess with you anymore after it’s over.”
By the time Earl saw E.L., Harbus was coming down the hallway, approaching the front door. This, he had to see. He liked E.L., but it wasn’t every day you got to watch somebody get the hell beat out of them. He was standing at the front door when Earl took a menacing step toward E.L.
“All right, you chickenshit motherfucker,” Earl said. “You ready to get your ass kicked?”
“Maybe you should just leave me alone instead.”
The crowd of students who had watched Earl work himself into a frenzy formed a circle around them. Billy, Jackie and Junior, backed out of the circle, lest they be mistaken for willing combatants.
“I got your ass now, new boy!” Earl said, as E.L. silently stood his ground.
Earl took another step forward, snarling like an animal. “I’m gonna teach you to butt into my business, you son of a bitch.”
“Why don’t you go over to the high school and pick a fight with someone your own age, you stupid fucker,” E.L. snarled back.
Jaws dropped in stunned disbelief as Earl rushed E.L., who stood his ground until the last second, when he side-stepped the hard charging bully, dropped sideways on his hands and swung a leg at Earl’s ankles, sending him sprawling face first onto the rough concrete, E.L. getting quickly to his feet as Earl stood up, bleeding from a scrape on the point of his chin, the crimson showing on the heels of both his hands staining the torn knee of his right pants leg as well.
“Shit, Earl, you’re even dumber than you look,” E.L. said, as the crowd came alive with:
“Get him, Earl!”
“Kick his ass, new boy!”
“Kick the shit out of him, Earl!”
Earl slowly advanced, but E.L. didn’t budge, and this time he was grinning at Earl. When Earl got within punching range, E.L. raised his clenched fists.
“He’s screwed now,” Billy said.
“Yeah he is,” said Junior, as Earl Butler, who probably outweighed E.L. by a good twenty pounds, swung a balled up fist, which, even though partially deflected, still landed sharp against E.L.’s head. When Earl tried grabbing him by the neck, E.L. twisted away, clamping down on Earl’s wrist. Driving a thumb deep into the soft, fleshy meat between his thumb and index finger sent a paralyzing shock of pain screaming up Earl’s arm. A knee to his gut dropped him down to his knees, where another knee brought bright red blood pouring from his nose, onto the white t-shirt he wore, until, finally, released, he toppled over onto his side.
Then it was finished, and several students were rushing forward to congratulate E.L., who slapped the friendly hands away as he walked through the front door, touching a small lump that had risen up on the side of his head. He wasn’t excited. He wasn’t happy. He was relieved, thankful the much stronger Earl Butler hadn’t caused any more damage than he had.
Pitch
William Pitch stepped from his master bedroom onto the second floor balcony overlooking his magnificent palatial estate. He had arrived just after the turn of the century from seemingly out of nowhere, buying up large plots of land all over town. Who he was, where he had come from and where he had gotten his money, no one knew, and no one really cared. They were just glad to see him spreading his wealth around their little mountain community. High upon Seeker’s Mountain, Pitch built what was still the biggest and finest house in the county, giving him a picturesque view of the valley below, and the mountain ranges stretching far beyond.
Pitch Place, built in 1910, was a place for the reclusive tycoon to retreat from the pressure-packed world of high finance. Sometimes he returned with friends, sometimes alone. When he did come back, Pitch kept to himself, notifying only a select few of his arrival. To the ordinary townspeople he was a legend, a tall tale. As far as they knew, they had never even seen him. They’d only heard stories. Stories Pitch directed people like the mayor or the old country doctor to spread around. As far as they knew, William Pitch was a wealthy recluse who came to town maybe once or twice a year, sometimes more, sometimes not at all; an absentee land baron who kept a hired man on his estate to make sure his home was in a perfect and pristine order, a man whose job it was to care for the many wealthy guests Pitch allowed to visit year round.
If the townspeople had ever known the truth, they would have torn Pitch apart, shot his hired man on sight, and burned his house to the ground. William Pitch, who had worshipped at the feet of Satan and come away with the gift of eternal life, possessed strange and horrifying po
wers the common man could never comprehend. Over the course of the last fifty-two years, he had been personally responsible for the disappearance of thirteen children. Not to mention the many men and women he’d killed or caused great harm to at the request of his group.
He changed the night Aincil Martin chased him into the mountain. A deal with a demon saved his life. A bargain sent him out into the world, allowing the demon to live his life through him. Before that night he had been selfish and greedy, but he had never been cruel. Sure, he’d killed the sheriff’s brother, but that had been necessary. He hadn’t enjoyed killing him. He had done it to save himself, and doubted he ever would have killed again had he not run into Scratch. Then again, if not for Scratch, he would have died on the mountain that night. There could be no doubting that.
They made a pact. He would live on and never age, have riches beyond his wildest dreams, and power over others. But there was a catch. Every thirteen years he would come back and take three innocent children from town, the younger the better. He would sacrifice them, and upon the final hour of that thirteenth year, bring their hearts to Scratch, or face the consequences of having a year of his life pass for every minute that ticked past the stroke of midnight.
Scratch gave him a velvet sack full of diamonds, and sent him out into the world.
“What shall I do?” he’d asked him.
“Whatever you want.”
He remembered hesitating at the mouth of the cave, and looking back to see something unsettling, something that was still disconcerting to him—himself, Jonathan Smith, still standing in the cave, cowering in a corner of it. He left Smith sniveling in that place, already changing as he stepped out into the clearing, his hair turning black, his body, melting and molding itself into an entirely different person, until the man he had once been was gone, replaced by the man who now stood on the balcony looking out at the horizon.
Pitch ventured out into the world, doing things he never would have thought himself capable of, vile and despicable acts no one in their right mind would even have contemplated: rape and murder, brutality, bestiality. Using his money to corrupt, he would see just how far into depravity someone would allow themselves to be pushed, which almost always turned out to be much farther than he dared imagine. His travels led him into the southland, murder and madness following him every step of the way.
Never changing.
Never aging.
He considered not coming back—why should he have come back to this mud-hole? He had his health and his freedom, and more than enough money to live like a king for the rest of his life. But how much life would be left if he didn’t return? How far did that creature’s reach extend? And what of the life everlasting he had been promised? Could it really be attainable? Of course it couldn’t. Caves don’t magically appear in solid sheets of rock and wizards don’t spring forth from them; down on their luck gamblers don’t step out of the jaws of death into worlds of fantastic wealth, and forty-one year old men don’t halt the aging process dead in its tracks. But one look at his never-changing reflection told him that he had done it, and if that part of the equation had come to pass…
He returned to Whitley and bought up most of the town, erecting high upon the mountain his magnificent palatial estate. He needed help to fulfill his bargain—after all, he couldn’t just start grabbing children off the streets. So he recruited the judge and the young country doctor, used his money to make a worthless peddler the town’s mayor, and let them pick out the rest. He bought them, plain and simple, made them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, and when the time came they delivered.
Pitch would never forget the night he returned to the clearing, the uncanny ritual that unfolded, bringing forth from a series of spinning pinpointed dots of light the well-dressed gentleman—still carrying that same top hat, standing in the same spot he’d occupied thirteen years before.
The solid stone wall that opened with a wave of a hand, the cave Pitch followed his unholy mentor into; Jonathan Smith, still cowering in its corner, babbling some incoherent nonsense no one would ever be able to understand. How strange it felt to see those same torn and dirty rags from that night thirteen years before; how odd to know the man cowering before him was the man he once had been.
Scratch held out a hand, and the velvet sack which had once been full of jewels, but now held three withered hearts of the children Pitch had murdered, floated across the cave. The demon placed one into his palm and the heart became animated, beating as if it was still inside a child’s living and breathing body. The well-dressed gentleman, having devoured the heart, transformed before Pitch’s eyes into a snarling, over-muscled demon from the depths of Hell.
Ten minutes of hell—in Hell.
Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over.
And Pitch stepped back into the world with a single command:
“My will be done.”
In New York City he became the king of Wall Street, his sizable fortune growing by leaps and bounds, unhindered by world-changing events looming on the horizon. Here was where he learned that spreading enough money around would produce whatever result he desired. No matter who or what they were, young, old, rich or poor, if he gave them enough, they would do whatever he asked of them.
In 1929, he met Jimmy Quick, and Pitch, who hadn’t aged a single minute in twenty-six years, was still forty-one years old.
Suddenly, his time was up, and it was time to return. That was the year he met Vonda Peters and her husband, Earl, and Earl’s meddlesome deputy, the year he found himself racing up the mountain not sure if he would make it there by midnight or not.
He didn’t make it.
The clock struck twelve and he started aging, hair and fingernails sprouting wildly as he staggered up the old dirt trail; his bones shrinking and shriveling, his skin turning hard as leather as Pitch found himself clawing his way through the clearing, screaming and crying and dragging a waist-length skirt of snow-white hair behind him, all the torment and suffering Smith had felt those last twenty-six years crashing down upon him like a crumbling house of bricks. By the time he reached that shoeless bastard, ten years of his life had gone by, and by the time their bargain was once again sealed, Pitch, who had been twisted into a blubbering human pretzel, had aged another sixteen years.
But then it stopped, and the pain went away.
The next time he was on time. That was 1942, the year he took a son.
He blinked his eyes a couple of times and 1955 was upon him, rendering unto him Bobby Turner and his two little pals. And now here he was again… one more time, standing by his old rocking chair looking down at his town. From here he could see it all, east to west, north to south, the courthouse his money had built, the house of God he had single-handedly destroyed.
And above all that, the giant rock formation the Indians had named Ward Rock, housing the invisible cave where it all had started, sixty-five years ago.
Sixty-five years.
It seemed like only yesterday he’d gone up that godforsaken mountain a scared, hungry and tired fugitive, only to come back down as ruler of all he surveyed.
While James Hastie unloaded his baggage, Pitch thought of Charles Hadley and the other twelve, what he had given and what he had taken from them. Fat and happy, he had made them. Power, he had given them. He had also made each and every one of those wailing sycophants fall to their knees and swear their allegiance to the Dark Master.
Pitch thought of Newton Hayes and the other children he’d stolen in the night, and how each person in his group had watched him sacrifice the innocents; the look on their faces as they gulped down blood drained from the dying bodies; the raw power racing through his veins as a bleeding heart was hoisted high above his head.
Yes, he had given, but he had taken from them much more than they could ever know. Some of their lives would be winding down now. The turmoil this created in their minds always brought a smile to Pitch’s face. What would happen when their lives ended? He shuddered a
t the thought. No one could comprehend the horrors waiting at the depths of Hell, not even him. That was part of the advantage he held over them, that, and the outright lies he had told them. Some of the oldest would beg for more time. They always had, and they always would. Sadly for them, though, that plain and simply had not been part of the bargain. Besides, where would it leave him if they had been given eternal life? Why, would that not have made them his equal?
Pitch closed his eyes, smiling as his mind drifted back to October of 1955, when crusty old Theodore Croft had demanded another twenty years.
“Eighty-three is not enough!” Croft had yelled. “I want to live forever!”
“You can live forever, Teddy,” he calmly told the old judge. “In Hell.”
And as Pitch stared deep into the old man’s eyes, his mind whispered, die.
Pitch watched in silence as the Honorable Judge Theodore Croft, a cruel and heartless bastard who had sent more innocent Christians away in chains than Nero himself, sat down and died; stunned as the fires of Hell reflected in the judge’s vacant eyes, and Croft’s peaceful and placid death mask changed into a grotesque and horrified expression of fear, the corpse raising an arm, its index finger pointing as a raw and rasping croak issued from its quivering lips: “We’ll be waiting for you, Piiiitch!”
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Pitch?” Hastie called out from the hallway.
“Yes, Jimmy, get us a bottle of whisky and a couple of cigars. Just two glasses, Jimmy. I want to drink straight out of the bottle.”
Hastie went downstairs and retrieved a bottle of Jack Daniels, two glasses and a couple of cigars, and put them on a silver serving tray. In the kitchen, he took a pitcher of ice water from the refrigerator, and placed it on the tray as well. Then he carried the tray upstairs, and joined Pitch on the balcony.
“Have you brought any outsiders up here, Jimmy?” Pitch said, picking up a cigar, biting off the end and lighting it.
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