by S. E. Green
I whirl away, falling to my knees, and violently throw up. Behind me I hear Travis doing the same. Several minutes go by while we both gag and spit and breathe, then I roll to my butt and look over at my brother.
I watch as he wipes his mouth before shooting me a scared, confused look. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and I immediately agree.
I have no clue what just happened, but I now know, there’s nothing about any of this that’s paranoia. What just happened was real. Very real.
WE SHARE A sprite the whole way home, but neither of us speaks. Travis drops me and my dirt bike off and says, “I’m going to Honey’s.”
“But what about the prayer in the woods?” I ask, even though I really don’t want to do it. I don’t want a repeat of whatever just happened.
Travis shakes his head, but he doesn’t answer, and I stand in our driveway, watching his truck drive away.
Slowly, I turn and I stare through the night at the woods. No, I don’t want a repeat, but after what just happened, especially after what just happened, I think it needs to be done.
Where two or more people agree. Wade. He’ll do this with me.
I climb back on my dirt bike and even though it’s dark out, I use the moon to navigate by as I slowly motor down our driveway and over to Wade’s. His parents’ car is gone again and I tap on his glass door. I don’t know what I’m going to say, how I’m going to explain this, and as I’m thinking through that, Wade appears in the doorway and suddenly I’m not scared or unsure of anything. Just the sight of him makes me feel safe. Yes, somehow Wade has become my safety in all of this.
He stares at me. I stare at him. He’s waiting for me to speak, and I try to funnel my thoughts into words, but nothing comes out because what I suddenly want from him is not to do a prayer in the woods, but for him to hold me. Just hold me.
He opens the door and extends his hand, “Come on,” he whispers, seemingly understanding what I’m unable to say.
With our hands linked, he quietly leads me through his house and to his bedroom. He locks the door, crosses to the window and closes the blinds, then comes back to stand in front of me. Circling his warm hand around the back of my neck, he pulls me toward him, and I wrap my arms around his waist as I lay my cheek on his chest and inhale his unique scent. It’s funny how just a week ago I had no clue what he smelled like, no clue what his skin felt like, and now if I were blindfolded I could easily pick him out of a hundred guys.
Holding me snug, he lays his cheek on the top of my head and slowly rocks me to the sound of his quiet room and our mutual breaths. I don’t know how long we stand here, holding each other, but eventually we move to his bed, and in the silence we make slow love, exploring, touching, kissing, breathing.
But just like before, we don’t say a word. Afterward we lay snuggled together, and I know I won’t ask him to do a prayer in the woods. I want to keep him as far away as possible from the evil.
THE NEXT MORNING when I wake up, Dad, Mom, and Kevin are gone and the note on the counter says only:
Be back in the afternoon
Travis is still in bed and so I wander out into the yard. I glance down to County Line Road to find it empty. My parents were right—this thing is dying down. I should feel relieved, but I’m not. Hopefully, my anonymous letter will get picked up today.
With a sigh I turn and look at our vegetable garden. Years ago when me and Travis were in Middle School we learned all about pesticides, antibiotics, and organic farming. We were so disgusted by everything that we learned, we came home and told our parents we wanted to become vegetarians and grow our own produce. They jumped right on board and within the week we had built the perimeter of our garden and began planting our first seeds.
The vegetarian thing only lasted a month—we love meat way too much—but our garden kept. It became a family thing with outdoor music, lemonade, and all of us digging and planting and weeding and just hanging out. But over the past year it has somehow become more of a pain in the butt than anything.
“Hey,” Travis says, coming up beside me.
I give him a glance. “You’re up early.”
He shrugs, “Couldn’t sleep,” and glances over to the woods.
I wait for him to bring up what happened last night in the cemetery, but he doesn’t. He just keeps looking toward the woods. I follow his line of sight and I don’t think about Michelle’s murder or the other prayer I want to say, instead that photo I found on Facebook comes to mind. It was taken in the woods, and I didn’t think about it before, but now I’m curious if it was these woods here.
“I found a picture on Facebook of Uncle Jerry, the Doughtery’s, Edwin, and a few other people meditating in the woods. It was an old picture, like from high school. When I showed it to Uncle Jerry, he sort of freaked. I don’t suppose you know anything about it?”
Travis shrugs, “I don’t know,” and turns away from the line of trees. “Bee-Bee went over to Honey’s house last night and confronted Edwin about that phone you found in his bag and those pictures of Michelle.”
This is a surprise. “And?”
“And nothing. He still claims that phone does not belong to him.”
“Do you believe he’s telling the truth?”
“I do. I mean why lie? They were just some innocent pictures of Michelle.”
If Edwin is telling the truth, then that means someone snapped those pictures and stashed them in his bag—almost like they’re trying to connect him to the murder or throw doubt into the mix or something. “I wonder if Bee-Bee recognized any of the pictures.”
Travis shakes his head.
“I would think the cops could dust the phone for prints or track it to who purchased it, right?” Of course my prints would be on it, but surely someone else’s would too.
“Listen,” Travis turns to me, and it’s apparent he’s changing topics. “I’m not sure what happened last night in the cemetery, but I don’t intend to tell anybody about it. It was just way too freaky.”
I get that. It was freaky.
“That said, if you still want to do the other prayer,” he nods to the trees, “in there, I’ll do it with you.”
I smile a little with both relief and nerves. “I do.”
SOME THIRTY MINUTES later I place the candle on the ground where Michelle was murdered, and I light it. Morning sun shines down through the trees, brightening the area like sporadic spotlights. I’m not sure if it’s all the light or not—in comparison to last night at the cemetery—but standing here now next to my brother, all nerves and feelings of intimidation completely fade.
Actually—I realize, as I straighten my shoulders—I’m bolstered. I’m confident. And I don’t think I’m going to be sick.
Reaching over, I take Travis’s hand firmly in mine, and without a second of hesitation it comes right out of me, clear and enunciated, “I demand this work be naught and that the peace of God reign down in Jesus’s name, and where two or more people agree, thou shalt be done. Amen.”
I wait. And wait. And wait. Yet nothing happens. The sickness doesn’t come. I look over at my brother to find him smiling.
He lets go of my hand. “Do you think whatever happened to us last night got rid of some demon or something and that’s why we were able to just do that?” He rolls his eyes in embarrassment. “I can’t believe I just asked that question. Demon, really? How ‘out there’ do I sound?”
I smile, because I was so about to say the same thing. “Don’t worry, you’re not crazy, and I think you might be right.”
Travis smiles, too, and as he leans down to extinguish the candle, a slow and deep chuckle resonates through the air.
My spine goes rigid.
Travis stands back up. “Did you hear that?” he whispers, and I nod.
Slowly, I turn, and my eyes search the gaps in the trees, the rays of sunlight streaming down, and the intermittent shadows and haze beyond.
Again, the chuckle—deliberate and dark—closer now, coming fro
m the left. Simultaneously, we both carefully move toward the twenty-two we brought and propped against a nearby tree. I’m the first to grab it, and I automatically lift it into firing position. My pulse throbs through my veins as I squint and sight down the length of it, my eyes fixed solidly on the trees.
“Come on,” Travis quietly says, pulling on my elbow.
Then something flashes—a person, an animal, an image—I don’t know, but it darts from one shadow to the next.
“Holy shit,” Travis murmurs.
“You saw that?” I whisper.
One single chuckle, again, yet seemingly coming from all directions now. Deeper yet, abysmal. The flash—and it’s not an animal or an image, it’s a person. A man, I realize. Bald. No shirt. Blue pants. Ducking from tree to tree. I hear his feet stir up some leaves, and before I fully realize what I’m doing, I move. Fast. I’m running.
“Vickie!” Travis yells.
But I don’t stop. I just keep going, my run transitioning into a full on sprint. I need to know who was watching us.
“Vickie!” Travis screams, and somewhere in the back of my mind it registers that he’s following me. He’s sprinting, too. “Stop!”
Stop. Yes, that’s the logical thing to do, but I can’t seem to make myself. I just keep going, like something other than my own volition is moving me. Because this man, he could be the person behind all of this. Yes, I’m chasing a possible killer and Satanist, but for some odd reason those thoughts don’t make me want to stop, they only drive me faster.
I sprint through an opening in the pine trees, my fingers flex, and I realize I’m no longer holding the twenty-two. I must have dropped it. I hear Travis behind me and I hope he picked the gun up because we may need to use it on this man.
My speed increases. I ran six years of cross county, and racing through woods is what I do. So my body automatically moves with the familiar rhythm, my feet grazing effortlessly over the uneven ground, and my breathing regulated through my nose. I keep my vision focused straight ahead and catch sight of the man darting right. As he does, he seems to fade away and I’m caught once again with the notion that he is an image, not a person. But I don’t know how that can be so.
We’re heading way further into the woods than normal. PaPaw owns all of this, hundreds and hundreds of acres, but I’ve never traversed them all. Other than our log house and PaPaw’s goat farm, it’s undeveloped. The only way you know you’ve come to the end is when you step foot onto a huge field that signifies you’ve reached the start of the nearby Dairy Farm. Is that where this guy is headed?
The laughter again, but this time higher and more like a giggle, yet something about it resonates even more black and wicked than the chuckle—it floats over me, sending an icy nip across my skin. Idly, I wonder if I’ve ran through some sort of shift in the weather or the wind.
There is he, closer now, his bald head. He disappears down a hill, and I increase pace. I leap over a row of fallen trees and come to an absolute and sudden halt. My heart bumps against my ribs—BANG-BANG-BANG—beating harder than it ever has before.
I’ve lost the man, but it doesn’t matter because what’s in front of me steals my every thought. Cats, six of them, gutted and split wide open, each nailed to its own tree, their insides laying in slimy bundles at the base of the trunks.
Travis comes up beside me, panting for breath, and his eyes fall on the visceral scene. “Oh my God,” he whispers.
But it’s the cat in the center of it all that draws my eyes. Because inside of it is stuffed a bright and sparkly purple bag. I know that bag. That’s Michelle’s little tiny purse.
“THIS IS VERY fresh. I’d estimate within the past two hours,” I hear an investigator say.
I close my eyes and turn away, trying to clear my brain of everything I saw. The cats spread wide, their heads hanging limp, their mouths frozen wide with teeth bared. But inside that one in the center, yes, the purse, but also what they found inside of it.
Barbie Doll parts, finger nail clippings, and tangled blond hair. Though no one has confirmed, I think we all know the clippings and the hair belong to Michelle. This is another part of the ritual that Mark didn’t tell me about, or maybe he just didn’t know about it.
“The blood of multiple sacrifices throw energy into the atmosphere and intensify the chance of success,” Kevin says.
My eyes snap back open and I whirl around to look at my younger brother. “What did you just say?”
He shrugs. “Just something I read.”
I look at everyone standing among the pine trees—PaPaw, Uncle Jerry, my parents, Travis, Detective Crandall, and the other investigators. They all seem as troubled as I do at what my brother just said. Or more to the fact how disturbing it is to hear him say it.
“Our land is tainted,” he continues in this non-purposeful voice like he’s not even bothered by this whole scene. “Like a giant X marks the spot for Satan’s portal.”
“Kevin,” Mom admonishes. “Stop it.”
“What?” he looks at all of our faces. “It’s true.”
A couple of eerie, quiet seconds tick by and with each one the tiny hairs on my neck shift and lift. Automatically, I move closer to the person standing nearest to me, Uncle Jerry. I think he feels it, too, because he lifts his arm and wraps it around my tensed shoulders.
Detective Crandall turns to Travis. “How good of a look did you get?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. It was Vickie who chased, and I followed.”
“Vickie,” Dad sighs. “What were you thinking?”
I don’t immediately answer because the fact is, I wasn’t thinking at all. Driven would more describe how I felt, like even if I tried to stop, I don’t think I could have. Not only does that confuse me, but it also worries me. How can I not have control of my own body?
I look at Crandall, totally bypassing Dad’s question, because I honestly don’t know the answer, and I also know that if I say anything like that, it’ll only make me look crazy. “Tall, skinny, bald, wearing blue pants, but not jeans, more like those scrub things doctors wear, and he didn’t have a shirt on.” I don’t mention the weird chuckle or the fact I’m not entirely sure it was a real man. Because the speed of him, and the way he seemed to appear and disappear. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Maybe my imagination is making more of this than there is because I’m finding it difficult to admit—even to myself—what, deep down, I think it was.
A demon.
The detective exchanges a glance with one of the other investigators standing silently nearby, and I get the distinct impression they’re exchanging some sort of communication, like they already know who I’m describing. I hope they do, because I really don’t want to latch on to this demon idea.
“What were you two doing in the woods?” Crandall asks.
“Praying,” Travis tells them, leaving out why we were praying.
Uncle Jerry squeezes my shoulders. “That was very nice of you two.”
PaPaw nods. “It was. You’re good kids.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the investigators zipping up a clear evidence bag and my gaze narrows in on the contents. That Barbie, the red curly hair. The big blue eyes. The hearts Michelle drew in multi-colored sharpies all over the plastic skin.
“I know that Barbie,” I say. “I gave it to Michelle for her last birthday.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON Travis finds me in my bedroom. “They found the guy.”
I turn away from the laptop. “Who?”
“The guy from the woods. He committed suicide. Shot himself in the head.”
“What?” I gasp.
Travis shakes his head, clearly at a loss. “I don’t know what to say.”
I don’t either. “That was quick.”
Travis sinks down on the side of my bed. “Maybe this means the killer is dead. Maybe he’s the one who did all those other things, too.”
I sit back in my desk chair and think about everything
for a second, and I almost laugh. A demon. Boy, my imagination is whacked. He wasn’t a demon, he was just a man. Disturbed, yes, and evil, but just a man. But why commit suicide? Was it guilt, or was he told to? Is the bald guy just a pawn in the master plan?
“Travis, you heard that weird chuckle, right? Didn’t it just seem to be in the air?”
He nods. “I’ve been thinking about that, and about you. I’ve never seen you run so fast. What were you thinking, chasing that man?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s like something took over my body. It’s like I was in there, but not controlling it. That makes me sound cracked, doesn’t it?”
“Actually,” he says on a sigh, “no. I’ve been that way a few times myself.”
I sit up. “You have? When?”
He looks away. “I don’t really want to tell you details. But just know I get what you’re saying.”
A good solid minute of silence goes by, and all I can think is, What is Travis hiding now? “Have you ever told anybody that?”
He lets out a huff of a laugh. “God, no. Talk about sounding cracked.”
“You know you can tell me anything, right? No judgment. I’ve got your back always.”
He nods. “I know.”
Some more silence falls between us and my thoughts trail back to the bald man. “Do they know anything about that man?” Like was he a member of The New Satanic Empire?
“All Crandall told Dad was that the man was wanted in the state of Georgia for ritualistic rape.”
Something icy pricks across my skin, and the sensation reminds me of how I felt when that man’s chuckle floated over me.
Travis looks as ill as I suddenly feel. “Meaning rape in a satanic ritual.”
I put my hand over my mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Travis winces. “I know. But he’s dead now, and hopefully he was responsible for everything that happened and now this can really be over.”