by Greg Walker
"No, the body that brought him here. In the woods."
"What?"
"Sean, your fear opened the door. But it wasn't the door itself. Something happened here, long ago. Someone, another child, was murdered. And the people don't forget that. They can't. It's embedded in the soul of this town, just as this wood is treated forever. They likely did not speak of it often, and some may have not even been aware of it. Children are sensitive to the fear, to that unseen current running throughout their existence. A child can’t explain it away or ignore it or understand it. And sometimes there is one child more sensitive to it than others. And in him, or her, it collects and builds. And when it's enough, he feels it, smells it, tastes it. And he comes."
Sean shook his head. "I was just afraid of stupid ghost story books."
"Yes, and I was afraid of tales that my older brother used to tell by the light of the hearth before bedtime. Of creatures that walked in the woods and would eat little children. But those fears are a place to attach the nameless one beneath, and give it expression, the ghost stories only a means."
"How do you know all of this?"
"I've had two centuries to figure it out. Watching him when he didn't know I watched. From inside. You saw his eyes. That's where we are. Inside. It's so dark, but he let's us see out sometimes. It's driven some of them mad, and I will go that way too, which will be a blessing if I can't get away. He sends us out to show the next one; you, this time. His collection. His trophies. When you were unafraid, he lost his grip, and I escaped. Some of the others did too, but they didn't know where to go, and he's taken them back. If he takes me, I'll never have the chance to get out again."
"But how, Silas? How will I find the kid that was killed? As soon as I step out of here, he'll kill me. And then we'll both be lost." As he spoke, he noticed his breath escape in a white plume and he shivered. The cabin had grown cold. Summer nights could be cool, but not like this. He stepped to the gap in the back, where the man had looked in on him. The ground was covered with snow. At least a foot. The trees had shed their leaves and their branches appearing as sinister fingers reaching into the sky.
"He's done this. To force you out. This place belongs to him now. But it will help you in your search, and that he doesn't know."
"Know what?" Sean asked, shivering constantly now.
"That the land remembers. The land knows. And now that it's barren, it will show you, if you look. But you have to go. You'll freeze to death if you stay here. Go back to your house and dress warm. Then go find the body. It will be all bones now. Bring as much as you can. Break a piece of wood from the cabin. It will protect you but you must not let go of it. No matter what. Because he always holds one back. He will try to use that against you..." Silas' increasingly short sentences faded to silence, and Sean noticed that he had dimmed, barely visible against the warped wood of the cabin wall.
"Silas, what's happening? Hold what back?"
"He's calling me. I will wait here...if I can. Go now, Sean."
"You have to tell me more. I can't do this, Silas," Sean screamed, edging on hysteria. Silas didn't answer. Sean could only make out his form if turning so that the apparition appeared in his periphery. And then only just. He wanted to break down and cry, wanted to wait here while Silas found this child. He'd done enough, and it was someone else's turn. But Silas couldn't and there was no one else. He knew that only too well.
With a cry of helpless rage, he turned around and grabbed a board and pulled. The rusty nails that held it in place squealed and fought him for the right to the scrap. They yielded with a final protest and following a sharp crack he held the wood in his hands, an arms-length piece of two by four that had been coupled with another board beneath to make a slat to stretch from the floor to the ceiling. Not too large, so he could carry it. Sean looked it over for something that would identify it as the talisman that Silas claimed it to be. It looked like an ordinary piece of wood. The nails poked out of the top, and he supposed he could use them as a weapon, but doubted it would do much good. No, if he went, he had to trust the hidden power of this wood, based on the word of a child's ghost, that it had properties to ward off a demon. But having a plan, and some hope, was better than none at all, and the cabin had kept the man out. But that was an enclosed space, and what if the magic hadn’t seeped in deeply enough, or not enough of the sacred materials had been applied to this one piece? Maybe he should choose another. But how could he trust that one, when they all looked the same? He stopped his increasingly panicky thoughts. Silas was right. He needed to go. It was too cold to stay here.
With the wood in his hand, and one more glance at Silas, Sean mustered his courage, opened the cabin door, and stepped out into the fresh snow, so beautiful in its pristine state. He expected the man to attack him at once, held the wood out like a cross to a vampire and turned in a circle. Only silence. Slowly, he began to walk towards the clearing and his house.
Chapter 16
Eric sat alone in the house in Lincoln Corners, trying to think of something besides the bodies. But what else was there? His life, Mary's life, and, he had assumed, the entire town's life, was consumed with the discovery. But the town did not know, went about its quiet business in total ignorance of the story that Eric thought had a shot at making the national news; especially when the reporters came to dig up secrets as the forensic team dug up the bodies, and found out about Adam. Some of them might even remember.
They had stayed three days in Pittsburgh. It wasn't Vegas, or the Grand Canyon, but Eric had shown Mary the sights the city offered. They went up to Mt. Washington for dinner and a ride on the incline, took in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and spent a day south of the city in the Laurel Highlands; they explored the waterfalls and hiking trails of Ohiopyle State Park, and visited the bundle of sticks erupting from the ground replicating Fort Necessity, built in haste at the order of a young George Washington to hold off the French. Eric thought that he might look for a house in the area, at some point in the future, after this was over. And the thought of asking Mary to come and live in it gained appeal. Marriage. A word he never thought would reside in the same sentence as the name Eric Kane. But then lucky had made an appearance so all bets were off. Anyway, that was for later, and for now he kept it to himself.
He had dropped Mary off at her home in Drake City, and then made the short trip to Lincoln Corners, gripping the steering wheel too tightly until his hands cramped. He told himself that probably nothing would come from it. What were the odds, really, that the police would find someone to hold accountable from a pile of old bones, ancient when compared to his brother's then fresh remains?
It was mid-afternoon when he pulled into his driveway. Eric noted that Perry Rice hadn't come home from Arkansas yet as he mounted the steps and walked into the cover of the enclosed porch. He turned around and stood for about ten minutes, simply watching: for Arnie, storming down the alleyway with hands curled into fists, for ladies standing in a front yard holding their elbows, shaking their heads and gesturing in the direction of the woods, for children charging around on bicycles channeling the dread and even excitement rippling through the village into their frantic pedaling, whether or not they understood its source. For an emergency vehicle. But nothing indicated that Pastor Burroughs had moved forward.
The day was cool, and he finally gave up and went inside to put on a sweatshirt and consider what to do next. He picked up the phone to call the Pastor, but then put it back down. His reaction in the study that had bothered Eric slightly then bothered him greatly now. He didn't, couldn't believe that somehow the minister had been involved, but he considered the possibility that he knew something, and that thought made him almost physically sick. Eric decided to take a walk to Janine's small store, to get some milk and find out for sure.
Janine greeted him warmly on his entrance and he smiled and returned it, looking for some indication of hidden strain. Nothing he could pick up on. He glanced at the daily paper in the rack by the
counter as he presented the milk, a loaf of bread, and a candy bar for purchase. A story about the vacant properties at the lake on the front page, not a story about a cemetery of small children.
"So anything exciting happen while I was gone? Had to go to Pittsburgh to meet with my agent," he said to Janine, in what he hoped sounded like a normal conversational tone.
"Exciting? Unless you consider a sale at the lumber yard, or that the Lamisons' mare foaled last night exciting, I've some got bad news for you." She chuckled.
You have no idea, Eric thought. He felt guilty for knowing what he knew, perplexed at why she didn't, and more than a little irritated at Pastor Burroughs. He understood the man's need to pray and prepare. But it had been four days. He kept seeing in his mind the old man's fingers, steepled and and then pushed and flattened together in an action concealing a fuller reaction. As though steeling for a blow he had expected without knowing when. Or maybe Eric had read things into it that weren't there.
He carried his purchases home, and sat down to think. And found himself still thinking hours later in a dark room. He would give the pastor one more day. If nothing happened tomorrow, he would confront him. If he didn't call the police while Eric waited in the room, he would do it himself. He tried to write more of his story, but achieved nothing but lines he deleted in disgust. He didn't need, didn't want, any distractions right now. Around midnight, he got into bed under the pretense of sleep, thinking he could fool his racing mind into shutting down.
He had just looked at the clock, now indicating two-seventeen a.m., ten minutes later than that last glance, when he heard the car start. From the direction of the church. He peered out of the window and saw Burroughs' vehicle idling at the back of the church lot. The man then got out of the car, and stood next to it, suddenly faltering in a near collapse and leaning on the hood. Eric almost rushed out of the house to help, thinking heart attack, when the pastor straightened up with effort, and began a slow march back to the house. He had not turned off the ignition, and exhaust fumes drifted in a haze behind the late model car, the muffler loud and in need of a mechanic.
Perplexed by his behavior, more than a little suspicious, and wondering where he planned to go at two in the morning, Eric decided to follow, if the pastor came back out and drove off. He threw on some jeans and grabbed his jacket on the way out the door. He glanced over towards the church in time to catch tail-lights heading towards the small hill and the cemetery. He waited a few seconds, started his own car, and then pulled out without headlights and drove after.
Arnie Fisk hadn't been sleeping well. Something was happening, and although he didn't know exactly when, he understood that a day of reckoning had come.
Damn you, Eric Kane.
He lay awake in bed next to his sleeping wife. He thought about waking her up to expend some of his nervous energy. She wouldn't refuse, never had unless she was ill or it was her time. Before she had dried up, that is. But her submissiveness, which he demanded in every other facet of their life together, bored him in his bed. And she was old, and looked it. Arnie had a few years on her, but manual labor had kept him fit and virile. He could still look at himself in the mirror naked without flinching, admiring an aging but tough sonofabitch with a body that men half his age envied. He decided he would get to Erie for his needs, didn't mind paying for what he wanted.
He got up and walked downstairs, drank some water, had a pee, and then paced in his living room. He almost tripped on her knitting basket left on the floor. He would have words with her about that in the morning.
Arnie needed to get rid of Eric. Twenty years without a hitch. Twenty years and no one had expressed even the smallest suspicion. He wouldn't go to prison. Not Arnie Fisk. He'd put a shotgun in his mouth first, double-barrels flush against his palette, and pull both triggers.
When he had left Eric's house after the confrontation, after foolishly accusing him of killing his own brother just for spite, the thought had come and he had banished it just as quickly. Now he circled back around. He could buy sex; so, too, there were men who took money for other things. He didn't want to kill Eric. Just send a clear message. Make him see the sense in leaving. Eric had no stake here, just a dead brother rotting away in the cemetery. But he, Arnie, belonged here. His great-grandfather had arrived over a century ago to help found the town and to run a sawmill, floating timber down Willow Creek to the mill. He died here, too, slipping on a log and striking his head to enter a coma from which he never returned, breathing his last three days later. But he had left his seed, and lived on in the town through his sons and their sons and now through Arnie. Even when Eric had lived here as a child, his family didn't have the history and roots and right to the ground that the Fisks claimed. Even less now.
He would go to Erie tomorrow, take care of his itch, and then see about hiring someone. Maybe the girl would know who to ask. Should be her sort of people. Feeling better, but still angered by the knitting on the floor, Arnie walked to the foot of the stairs to climb back to the bedroom. He would wake her up. Not for sex, but to have her come down and pick up the basket now. And then she could sleep on the couch.
He had gotten to the second step when he heard the car start. He turned around and went over to the window, his heart racing and mouth dry. He knew the Pastor’s car from the sound of the small hole in the muffler, amplifying its rumble. A flash of hatred ran through him as loud mufflers led to John Thomas Groves and that Harley of his. Police wouldn’t do anything about it. If not for those damn dogs, he might have slipped over and slit the tires...and that punch in the jaw. A sucker punch. The only sort that Groves' kind could throw...he forced himself to focus.
Only one place the Pastor could be heading this late. He felt some relief with the ability to take action instead of sitting here and waiting. It wasn't his style. Fisks took care of things that needed taken care of. He would follow Burroughs, but take the longer route to find out what he was up to without being seen. Then, when he had assesed the situation, they'd have it out. He'd take the reins of this thing again, and then extend that control to Eric Kane.
Arnie paused only to get his shotgun and shells, just in case, and then slipped out without telling his wife. He did take a moment to kick the knitting basket, and left with the satisfaction of balls of yarn all over the floor, some partially unraveled. Maybe she would trip over them when she got up. He hoped so.
Patrick Burroughs drove slowly towards Paul's farm, feeling not so much that he controlled the car but rather was caught in the gravitational pull of a dark planet eager to claim him as its inhabitant.
He had seen Eric return, and the weight of his presence compelled him, finally, to go. He had planned to go that afternoon after learning of the bodies, then decided the following morning would be best, allowing time to collect himself. Then Eric had left, and his resolve had failed. He tried to work on his next sermon, the next installment of a study on the book of Jonah. He got nothing done except to wonder what form his great fish would take when it swallowed him, for refusing to follow the path laid out before him. And still he resisted. He slept and ate poorly, cried and spoke to his dead wife and the mother of his son; a son that he feared and detested and pitied and loved, so glad Carrie never had to know. He considered asking Paul to go in his place. But he couldn't. This was his to do. He began praying for strength, on the fourth day, and on ceasing had looked out the window and Eric's car sat in the driveway. And still he resisted. In bed wide awake, he grew weary of himself, got up and dressed. He found his mind clear for the first time since Eric and Mary had left his office, and made preparations.
He collected a flashlight, filled a bottle of water and put them both into a knapsack. He remembered his shotgun in the basement - hadn't gone hunting since his friend Dale Brogan had passed away - but believed he still had some shells. He then dismissed the idea of a weapon, couldn't see how it would be necessary, feared what he could do with it. He stood in his kitchen, in the dark, savoring the last moment of peace, h
oping one last time that Isaac wasn't responsible for these additional children. Adam, yes. He knew that, had always known that. But he couldn't lie to himself anymore or put this off any longer, understood that tonight he would learn a truth he didn't want to learn. Hadn't he just told Eric that true things were hard?
Physician, heal thyself.
Wishing he had more to do before going, having already stalled for yet another hour, Burroughs stepped outside and started his car. One last time he tried to delay, nearly collapsed before going back into the house...to do what? His life would be a torment until he acted. And Eric surely wouldn't wait much longer, would call the police, and then any modicum of control he had would slip away.
He steeled himself, went back to the car which he had left running, apparently in unacknowledged acceptance of the inevitable, and began the drive.
Eric followed, staying as close as he dared. In town as small as this, and especially this late at night, anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention would pick up on the tail. He considered turning around, but the odd hour and odd behavior of Pastor Burroughs convinced him that something was happening relevant to the dead kids. And really, what did he have to fear if discovered? That the minister would poke a pistol out of the window and start shooting? He imagined the scene, complete with slow motion special effects and laughed out loud. The sound highlighted just how tense he felt. No, no weapons, but Burroughs might have something even more potent, something both dreaded and desired. The truth, or at least a part of it.