by Ripley, Ron
Where the face had been, there was nothing but raw flesh and bone. The teeth looked as if they were being barred at the sky, and the eyes were nothing more than red holes. The nose, too, was gone, a ragged triangle where once had been skin and cartilage. Blood and flesh stuck to the palms of Father Moran’s hands.
Father Alexander climbed wearily to his feet, his eyes red.
“What did you say?” James asked softly.
Father Alexander smiled tiredly at the young man. “I told him that he could die, James. I told him that it was alright to die. God would be waiting for him.”
Mason felt a cool sensation on his shoulder, and he turned. One of the natives had placed his shaking hand upon Mason. The man gestured with his head, and Mason nodded.
“They’ll still come with us,” Mason said.
James looked at him. “What are we going to do about Father Moran?”
“We’ll come back for the body,” Mason said. “Right now we have to go and kill that prick.”
“Yes,” Father Alexander agreed, “our first duty is to kill Liam Boylan, whatever he is. And I do not think, as we have said, we will be able to leave this place while that beast is alive.”
“We can’t discuss it,” Mason said. “We have to go. If you can’t come with us, James, then stay with Father Moran’s body.”
“I’ll do that,” James said after a moment. “I don’t think I can go into that place,” he said, nodding at the forest.
“No shame in that, son,” Father Alexander said gently.
“None at all, James,” Mason said, “we’ll see you soon.”
Eight
Harold Philips and Julie Markarian
Harold sat at his small dining table drinking a third cup of coffee. The clock on the mantle in the den chimed eight. He’d read The Globe, The Union Leader, and The Telegraph.
There was little left of the Sunday morning, unless he wanted to go to Church.
And Harold hadn’t been to Church since he’d seen Max Steuben get cut in half by a machine gun on Peleliu. Max had been a good boy.
Harold took a sip of his coffee and looked at the kitchen floor, smiling. No one would ever be able to tell that some prick had bled out there. The carpet in the den had been a little more difficult to take care of, but he did it. And yes, he was supposed to be at his nephew’s house, but who wanted an old son of a bitch around?
Besides, Harold liked to be home.
Always had.
The doorbell chimed.
Harold put his coffee down, picked his .45 up and put it on his lap, hidden beneath the table, a round chambered.
“Come in!” he called.
He heard the screen door squeak and then the doorknob to the side door turned and opened. A young, attractive woman stepped in.
She smiled nervously at him. “Mr. Philips?”
“Yes,” Harold smiled, keeping his pistol ready.
“I’m Julie Markarian,” she said.
His smile fell away. “Come in and close the door, Miss,” he said, putting the pistol up on the table as she turned and closed the door.
When she looked back, her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the weapon.
Evidently her brother hadn’t told her about the attack.
“Do you want coffee?” he asked, rising to his feet.
“No thank you,” she said.
“Please sit,” he said, gesturing to the only other chair at the table.
“Thank you,” she said, and once she did so, Harold sat down as well.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“My brother and Mason are gone.”
“Do you know where?” Harold asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think they went to Meeting House Road,” she said. “I think they went to the Boylan House.”
“Did you check?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” Harold said. “You and I can go together.”
“What?”
Harold nodded. “Yes. We need to know if they’re at that house. I can’t drive, and you can’t go by yourself. It’s perfect,” he smiled.
After a moment, she smiled too. “Yes, I believe you’re right.”
Harold picked up his coffee and finished it before easing himself to his feet. He walked over to the peg rack by the side door and took his gun-belt down and buckled it around his waist. He pulled a flannel jacket on and wandered back to the table. Julie watched him flip the safety on and then slide the automatic into the holster.
“Well,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m ready.”
Julie laughed and stood up. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he smiled, glad to see her relaxing a little. If the two men were up to something that involved the Boylan House, she was going to need to be on the top of her game. He couldn’t have her distracted and worried.
It never helped.
Julie stood up and reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out her car keys.
Harold opened the door and held it for her.
“Do you need your wallet or house keys?” she asked him.
“No,” he smiled. “I’ve got cash in my pocket and who the hell is going to rob an old man who still has a rotary phone?”
She opened her mouth to say something, closed it and gave a shrug. “You’re probably right,” she said.
Harold smiled at her again.
“Thank you,” she said, opening the screen door as she stepped out into the driveway. Harold stepped down after her, pulling the door closed behind him before taking the screen door from her. Julie’s black sedan was parked on his driveway, and she used an electric key to unlock the car.
Harold walked steadily to the passenger side door, opening it and easing himself into the car. He felt the cold in his joints, and it settled into his bones. But it felt good to be doing something. He wasn’t angry with the men for not involving him, yet he couldn’t help feeling a little useless.
With a grunt, he pulled the door closed as Julie got in.
After she closed her door and started the car, she looked over at him. “Meeting House Road?”
“Yes,” Harold said. “Meeting House Road.”
Nine
The Whispering in the Woods
Once the graveyard had disappeared, blocked by the ancient trees of Liam Boylan’s forest, and James and the corpse of Father Moran had slipped into shadow, the whispering started.
At first, Mason thought he was the only one who heard the whispers, but one of the natives glanced around suddenly, and Mason saw the fear on the man’s face. Looking back to Father Alexander Mason saw beads of sweat on the priest’s forehead. Mason wondered what the priest heard because he knew what he heard.
Mason heard his mother whispering about how she was molested as a girl by her uncle.
Her uncle telling him how wonderful it was.
A man who claimed to be his father saying he left because he couldn’t stand the sight of Mason.
His best friend having driven off of the pier in Connecticut, but changing his mind almost, at the end, when it was too late.
The last, rattling breath of his Grandmother, telling him that it was all lies and that there was nothing but this world. Nothing in the next for there was no next.
And the voices whispered all at once, each one disturbingly clear in Mason’s head. They spoke of things he knew were true. Things he remembered hearing, things he remembered seeing.
The whispers that were of combat were the worst, though.
Mason had never been a lover of war. Had never, as they say, fallen in love with the brutality and the camaraderie of it. The bond was tight, of course, between men who fought together, but Mason remembered the horrors of it as well. Iraqi roads filled with burning cars, the stench of seared rubber and flesh ruining his clothes and his dreams for years.
The discovery of rape squads in Bosnia.
Of killing those men by gutting them and letting them bleed out, zip tied to the steering wh
eels of abandoned vehicles.
Mason tried to ignore the whispering, to push it down and back. Yet all he could do was muffle the voices. Some words slipped through. Occasional sentences, but that was all.
He breathed a little easier even as they stepped out into a small glade, a wide stream running through it, twisting away beneath thick bushes. The stream was silent. The howls of agony from the two natives were not.
Ten
Father Stathi Alexander in the Glade of the Dead
Stathi’s mind was in a fog as he stepped into the glade behind Mason. He had spent the short time that they traveled through the woods praying fiercely. He had prayed to the Holy Mother, to God, to the Son, to the Saints and the Martyrs, he had prayed to them all in an attempt to silence the horrific sounds which had assaulted him.
Terrible sounds.
Sounds much like the ones torn from the mouths of the two natives.
Blinking away the daze, Stathi looked about the glade and stumbled.
Crucified between many of the trees were young, teenage boys. They were all natives. All of them eviscerated. Each wore an expression of absolute terror upon their young faces. Each too, had been neatly scalped, the job expertly done. Yet perhaps the most disturbing was the fact that the genitals of each were missing.
Devoured, quite literally, by Liam Boylan.
With a final, combined voice filled with pure rage, the two native men raced across the stream, following the trail and vanishing from view.
And then Mason’s hand was on Stathi’s bicep.
“Come, Father,” Mason said gently. “This is no place to stay. We need to follow the trail.”
Stathi hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded. “Yes. Of course. Liam Boylan.”
“Yes,” Mason nodded, turning Stathi away from the dead.
Mason let go of Stathi’s arm and led the way to the stream. Stathi followed, trying not to allow the numbness that he was feeling, to sweep over him.
He watched Mason cross the stream, the water instantly soaking the man’s pants. Mason held the shotgun high, the water just below the hem of his jacket. When he had crossed to the other side, he stood there at the trail, waiting for Stathi.
Stathi nodded and walked to the stream. For a moment, he looked at the running water, remembering such streams in his youth, playing in the woods around Lowell. Smiling, Stathi stepped into the stream.
Something brushed against his calves and Stathi took another step forward through the water, only to feel something wrap around first his left leg, then his right. Stathi stopped and looked down at the moving water.
“Are you alright?” Mason asked.
Looking through the rippling filter of the water, in the darkness of the night, Stathi glimpsed a pair of white hands upon his calves. The hands were joined to wrists, wrists to forearms, forearms to elbows, elbows to biceps and the arms disappeared into shadow.
Stathi looked up to Mason.
***
Mason held the shotgun in both hands as Father Alexander stepped into the stream, a tired smile upon the old priest’s face.
The man took only two steps in, however, and stopped. He looked down at his legs in the water. Father Alexander seemed lost in thought as he stared down.
“Are you alright?” Mason asked, slipping his finger onto the trigger.
Father Alexander looked up to Mason, opened his mouth and was jerked down and into the stream.
He was gone.
Not even a swirl. No hint of robes. No floating prayer beads.
Nothing.
The priest was gone.
Both priests were gone, and James was still by the graveyard with Father Moran’s corpse. And the natives had run ahead for their vengeance. Evidently, Liam Boylan had never shown them that little trick before.
Mason stood alone on the path in the forest. He looked for a moment longer at the swiftly moving stream. All traces of Father Alexander having ever existed, now gone.
Mason nodded once, turned and started up the path, following it as the natives had done.
Eleven
Harold and Julie at the Boylan House
Harold saw James’ truck as soon as Julie turned her car onto Meeting House Road.
The big black vehicle was parked across from the Boylan House, and all of the shutters on the House were closed.
“Why would they close the shutters?” Julie asked, as she pulled in behind her brothers.
“They didn’t,” Harold answered softly. “They would never have blocked the light of the sun out of the house. The house closed the shutters.”
“Is it that bad?” Julie asked.
Harold looked over at the woman. She was young, but he could see that she was strong and determined. He couldn’t lie to her. “It’s worse than any of that. Anything we know of it.”
Julie turned the car off.
She opened her door and looked over at him. “Are you coming up to the house with me?”
“I am indeed,” Harold chuckled. He unbuckled and unlocked his door, opening it carefully. He walked slowly around the front end of the car to meet her, then together they crossed the road and started up the gentle incline. She had to help him the last few feet to the door, but he made it.
“I’m certain it’s unlocked,” Harold said.
Julie reached out, tried the latch, and the door was indeed unlocked.
Harold took his .45 out of his holster and followed Julie into the house. “Let’s try upstairs,” Harold said.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
He nodded. “There’s no sign of anyone here, but someone must have been. We need to check out everything we can.”
“Okay,” she said.
Harold took the lead and proceeded slowly and cautiously. Something was in the House, and he could feel it. A raw feeling clawed at his stomach. Harold ignored it as he entered the second floor, which was an identical copy of the first floor.
Except for the chimney. This chimney had some sort of false door built into it, and the door was open. He and Julie approached it carefully.
Skulls gleamed and shined upon neat shelves, and Harold sighed as he looked at them. His breath hitched for a moment and then he cleared his throat.
“Do you think, Julie, that you could help me?” he asked her.
She looked at him, concern displayed on her face. “Sure. What is it?”
“Up there, the skull that has ‘Michael, 1945’ on it, could you take it down for me, please?”
He saw her swallow nervously before reaching up and gently taking the small skull down. Harold holstered the pistol and accepted the skull from her.
He smiled sadly at it and felt tears well up. He tried to blink them away.
“Your son?” Julie asked gently.
Harold could only nod.
She turned and looked back at the skulls. “They were all someone’s son.”
For a moment longer, she looked at the skulls in their tidy rows. The first ones were labeled simply, ‘Indian, 1669’ and the last two, Harold saw, were the Verranault boys.
He watched then as she took off her jacket, bent over and spread it out and open on the floor. Without a word, she started to slowly and reverently remove each skull and place it on her jacket.
Harold was silent as she worked, cradling the skull of his only child.
Twelve
Mason Philips and Liam Boylan
Mason moved steadily along the path.
He could hear nothing except the sound of his own footsteps and his breathing.
And that was fine.
His hands were cool and calm upon the shotgun. Each step was smooth. His thoughts focused.
Soon he found himself stepping into another opening in the woods, yet this one hid the sparse sky. The branches of fir trees were interwoven high above his head. A small fire burned harshly off to the right while Liam Boylan sat on a throne of deadwood. Short pillars of polished wood lined the opening, each with a single skull upon it.
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Liam Boylan looked at Mason and sneered.
“If you had been a bit older,” the beast said, “then I would have taken you instead of that other boy. That would, I think, have been quite for the best.”
Mason came to a stop only a half a dozen yards from the throne.
“Your family has plagued me for centuries,” Boylan said, straightening up slightly. “They hunted me in Ireland. Followed me here to the colonies. Found me out shortly before this country’s revolution and have generally harassed my business for far too long. I had hoped that with the death of Michael Philips, it would have been done. Yet it has continued instead.”
“And what is your business,” Mason asked, looking about him. “The murder of children?”
Boylan chuckled. “That’s simply a pleasure. An indulgence, if you will. No, Mason Philips, there are other things at which I work. That is none of your concern, however. You are simply a pest. Like all of your family has been.”
“This won’t work, will it,” Mason said, glancing down at the shotgun.
“Well,” Boylan said with a slight hint of admiration, “you are at least smarter than your predecessors. And you are correct. That weapon won’t work. Not by itself. Perhaps if you had a priest with you,” the thing smiled, “but alas, they’re both dead, aren’t they?”
Mason nodded, yet he didn’t let go of the weapon.
What else would the weapon work with? He thought.
“And now,” Liam Boylan said, looking at Mason, “what are we going to do here?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said honestly. “But I’ve had about enough of you as well.”
“Oh?” Boylan asked, grinning.
“You’ve been in my nightmares for too many years,” Mason said. “I want it to stop.”
“I truly wish to help it stop,” Boylan said. “I think death would be a sweet release for you. I won’t deny that I would enjoy your death tremendously,” the thing said, “but I do believe it is the best option for you. Trapped here,” he said, gesturing at the woods around him, “well, if there were any Indians left, they could tell you it’s a rather unpleasant experience.”