The Pines

by Robert Dunbar

  “’Thena, the dog will be all right. I’ll pick him up in the morning when I get your suitcases. Let’s just get to my house and try to rest.”

  They got in the Plymouth, Steve behind the wheel, the boy between them on the front seat. She handed Steve the keys and checked the locks on all the doors. When she turned the boy’s face to her, his eyes twisted away to stare through the windshield.

  “Chabwok would never hurt you, would he, baby?”

  Awareness seemed to flicker on his face, then fade, leaving only ashes. The engine chattered, and the car rolled onto the winding sand. For a moment, headlights caught the silent house. Then it vanished, behind them in the night. They paused at the sand hill, the tires crackling over sticks.

  She pointed. “That leads to the highway.”

  “What’s down the other way?”

  “I don’t know, Steve. Nothing.”

  The boy’s face stayed slack, but with a sudden bolt, he pointed his whole body toward the fork that led away from the highway.

  “It’s down that way, ’Thena. What ever it is, it’s down there.”

  The engine idled. The boy moaned with an agitated rumble in his throat.

  “Steve?” She peered down the dark fork.

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “What is it?”

  “A car, or a truck, I can’t tell.”

  “Drive up a little farther,” she told him.

  He looked at her.

  “We have to. If there’s people in it, we have to warn them.”

  The car turned laboriously.

  “Be careful of the sand here.” Her voice was so soft, it was almost as though she were talking in her sleep. “The car gets stuck sometimes.”

  A small tree broken beneath it, the panel truck leaned against the woods off the road. Doorless and battered. No license plate. Broken windshield.

  “Do you recognize it?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I may have seen it around town.” The boy knocked against her as he began rocking back and forth, faster and wilder, mumbling to himself.

  Steve rolled down the window. “Anybody around?! Yo! Can anybody hear me?”

  The boy’s lips continued to move, his face lit by dashboard dials. He cocked his head to one side, listening to voices only he could hear, and his eyes never wavered from the night.

  “You’re going to make yourself sick again, baby. Try to calm down.” In response, the boy murmured weakly, wildly. Trying not to hear, she took his face in her hands. “Matty, listen to me. It’s going to be all right. Do you hear me? It’s okay. Steve? What are you doing?”

  “I have to get out and check.”

  “No!”

  “Just stay put a minute. I could swear I see somebody in that truck.” The door slammed behind him.

  “Steven!”

  A few quick steps brought him to the other vehicle. Then the smell hit him. “Oh my God.”

  Something headless slumped at the wheel.

  Marl screamed away from it. He would not look up. Not for anything. Above him, impossibly huge, he knew its eyes glowed red with hellish fires, and its long tail whipped through the pines. Swaying, it spread wings that blacked out the night sky.

  It hovered, taloned feet hanging just above the sand. A rope of saliva glistened as it opened its mouth and howled.

  Dwarfed by the thing, he sobbed and rolled about the clearing, trying to escape the monstrous flapping, but all around, the hated pines pressed closer, trapping him. Each time the monster screamed, Marl hunched farther into himself, a tight ball, tearing soft hairs from his chest in fear and kicking at the dirt.

  The woods wavered. He was safe elsewhere, gazing out through a windshield into the night as the woman’s arms tightened around him.

  They wavered again, and he hid his face in the sand. Car bouncing in the…dark moving…coming here to night or don’t you believe? and if we run Dragonfly if we run we’ll take it with us hatches out in the end all foul…don wanna…water all leaked away in the palm of my hand felt like fire No! Don’t! Please! Wings burst outta the skin an it flies wet Something moved in the wind and mounting heat. You know what’s out there, boy? He remembered moonlight and the woman’s voice as she held the book, murmuring in softness, remembered as though he’d been there. And the picture. Chabwok. The monster. want I want I want my friend Ernie, where are you? Pammy-blood comin’ outta my mouth

  It loomed before him, the picture from the page, eyes glistening, claws snapping, tearing away the tops of trees, and his stomach churned in terror. His head throbbed, lips stretched tight; his teeth felt too large.

  come with me please to the woods Marl just once

  The rising moon cast the dimmest of ground light. The reptilian tail lashed the sand near his face, and the wind it caused ruffled his hair. The yowling continued, sharp and inhuman.

  Marl raised his head. No monster’s tail slashed the air, only pine trees waving in the sudden wind. He stood up, his naked body soiled with ash. His left arm was burned, but he didn’t feel it. The wind blew long whitish hair about his face, and it felt good. He looked around.

  No Devil. And those were not spreading wings that billowed and blotted out the sky. But still the howl poured forth as though from the Pit. He felt it vibrate in his chest, ripping through his throat. Come with me, Marl. Trembling tears streaked his face. You don’t have to be scared. Not scared.

  He spread wide his arms as though to embrace the woods, the long-hated woods, and reached for the smoke-stained sky.

  The breeze carried a churning gurgle, as though floods rushed across the parched land. The wind flowed louder, roaring with a surge that hissed and lapped in suddenly shifting gusts. Even the sand stirred, rustling in the heated air, while in the low grasses insects shrilled louder, then stopped altogether.

  Its topmost branches bent beneath a crushing wind; then Hanging Tree cracked with a drying sound. Above it, the night reddened with a false dawn.

  Noises surrounded the Monroe house. It seemed all the birds were awake and shouting, stirred to panic by the acrid wind. Already, the smell of smoke hung thickly over the yard, and from inside the darkened house came barking and a frantic scrabbling at the door.

  “I’m sorry, ’Thena. I shouldn’t have gone this far.” Slowly, the car pressed along the narrow road, scraping trees on both sides. “There’s got to be a place to turn around.”

  “I’m frightened.” She tightened her arms around the boy, who kept trying to jerk away from her. “I’m really frightened.”

  “Take it easy.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at them, and he cursed as he struggled with the wheel. “Do you know who it could have been? In the truck back there? No, forget it. I’m sorry. I’ll get us out of here in a minute. Shit, I should’ve just backed up to the fork.”

  The boy’s frenzy increased. Restraining him, she didn’t answer at first. “We w ould’ve gotten stuck in the sand. Not your fault.”

  “Wait a minute. Was that a spot? Could I turn around there?” He stopped the car, backed up. “I can’t tell. Is there enough room?”

  She could see practically nothing through the window. “Yes, I think so.” She unlocked the door and opened it to the moving ground. “Go back a little farther. Now cut your wheels.”

  The boy scrambled across her and out the door. She clutched at air.

  “Jesus!” Instantly, Steve threw the brake and jumped out the other door. “Stop! Come back here! Matty!”

  “Where are you?” She jumped out, staggered into the trees. “Matthew!”

  “Athena!” He ran a few steps. “Stop right there. Don’t chase him. He went up that way—running along the road. Get back in the car.”

  “But…”

  “Hurry!”

  His door slammed. Hesitating, she looked about wildly.

  “’Thena!” The car started moving. “Quick! Jump in!”

  She threw herself across the seat. “Where is he?” They rolled after the boy. “Do you see him?
”

  “Athena, shut that door!”

  “Where is he? Matthew, come back! Do you hear me? Go faster!”

  “I’m afraid I’ll hit him. Athena, close that door all the way!”

  “Matthew? Oh God, oh my God, stop the car! Stop the car and let me go after him. Oh Matty!”

  “Don’t be stupid—you’ll get lost. He went this way. Look up there! Is that him? I think I see…”

  The road ended. Abruptly. A wall of trees.

  “Oh please…Steve, catch him…. I can’t run.”

  He stood in the road. “He went in that way. I saw him.” He stood by the car and pounded his fist on the hood. “Matty! Matty! No, ’Thena, stay in the car. I’ll go get him. Do you hear me? I said stay in the car.”

  “No.”

  “What if he comes back and there’s nobody here?” He turned to look at her one last time. “One of us has to stay. Now don’t argue with me. We can’t waste the time. Roll up the windows and lock the doors. Keep the headlights on so I can find my way back.” He slammed the door. “Keep the rifle in your hands. You remember what I told you about how to use it? What ever you do, don’t open the door to anybody but me and the boy.”

  “Steve?” She leaned out.

  “And roll up those windows!” He hurried into the pines. “Matty! Where are you, boy? Answer me!” The headlights shone brightly behind him, striping the sand with pine shadows. He gripped the revolver. The breeze held a wisp of something; he shuddered with disgust, and the trees whispered like children all around him. It was here. He knew it. Flicking off the safety catch, he prayed that she wouldn’t get out of the car.

  He waited for the phantom children to surge toward him, waited for the clawing hands. He clutched the sweaty gun more tightly, and he stumbled, the ground breaking loose, soft. His stomach clenched. “Matty?” Already, the headlights behind him looked distant and foggy, and he cursed himself for not having brought the flashlight. He panted against the clamminess of his clothing. The hot silt of the dried swamp gave way beneath his feet with every step, and the air hummed around him. He heard a noise.

  “Matty?” But he knew.

  Something slogged toward him. He felt the strength drain from him with a steady, pulsing nausea, felt his guts roil and the sweat run down his sides.

  The shot sounded so faint, so faraway.

  She sat very still. Please, be all right. She could see only the reaching pines, frozen in the high beams. Steven. Matthew. She shut her eyes. Help. She heard nothing further. No shots. No cries. I should go get help. Even as she thought it, she knew there was no time, and as she sat motionless, an awareness filled her, a sense of her whole life, of everything that had brought her to this frozen moment, until her silent panic hardened into a feeling of rightness, of inevitability.

  It’s out there. Waiting. The way I always knew it was. It has the boy. And now I’m going to find him. To get him back. At last. All the nightmares rose in her mind. It could be anything, anyone. She remembered all those books they’d read and what Doris had said about people who change, who kill. But I’m going to know it now. The weight of the rifle surprised her. I am. She moved with an almost mechanical efficiency, as though she’d been preparing for this her whole life. Now.

  She left the headlights on, and the merging shafts struck the blackness. So we can all find our way back. Getting out, she slammed the door tight and took a few steps, cutting through the swath of light. Beyond the bright island in front of the car lay only a void. Like the end of the world. Not limping, though her leg ached, she headed into the trees. “Steven?” Her shadow hurtled on ahead of her, startling her as it leaped from trunk to trunk. “Matthew?”

  Hot wind gritted across the sand, and she listened to the night keening as it passed over her.

  It knows. She switched off the flashlight and clipped it to her belt. It’s waiting. Moonlight clawed through the trees, ran up the barrel of the rifle. In a few moments, her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and she moved on.

  She heard birds calling in agitation…and other noises now, tiny sounds, as though dozens of small slinking beasts scurried through the brush. Things crunched underfoot. Please, be all right. Her hand went numb, and she relaxed her grip on the rifle, felt the blood tingle back into her fingers.

  A ticking of leaves and twigs became a heavy crunching.

  “Steven?”

  It grew louder.

  She aimed the rifle at nothing she could see.

  It growled.

  She fired and ran, blinded, her shoulder aching from the recoil. No dream. Behind her, bulk shifted and rattled through the pines. It’s not a dream. She spun around, fleetingly aware of an area of moving darkness.

  Again, the gun rocked and roared, and she breathed the tang of gunpowder.

  It grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back.

  She felt its talons, felt her scalp burn as hair ripped out. Crystals of pain tore through her skull, and her mouth pulled open, a gravid choke bursting in her throat. Whirling, she struck with the rifle butt, the blow containing all the terror-born fury of a thousand nightmares.

  The dark shape staggered.

  The gun wrenched from her grasp to go crashing into the dark.

  She ran. Pain jolted in her leg as she broke through thick bracken. She could hear the thing crashing through the underbrush close behind her, and she stumbled, the flashlight on her belt banging against her thigh. She groped for the flashlight, pulled it loose. Switching it on, she cast it as far as she could into the pines. Instantly, she bolted in the opposite direction.

  The pounding in her chest squeezed the breath from her until she could hear nothing but her own gasps. Sinking to the ground, she curled her body into a ball, found a bush to crawl beneath.

  The night came in with wave after wave of terror; she felt it close above her head like a black foam. Don’t move. Ragged tendrils of the dark wrapped themselves around her, and she hid herself in them. Don’t make a sound. Wind hissed in her ears, and she felt safe, one with the night.

  Where’s the moon? When she opened her eyes, she could no longer see the stars. Her hands traveled over herself, feeling for blood, for gaping wounds. Her sides ached, and she trembled with a shock reaction from the pain in her scalp.

  Something swirled in her vision, off in the trees, dim movement.

  Mist shrouded the glow of the flashlight. But I threw it farther than that, and I ran. How could…? The splaying beam swung through the trees. Steve? She stayed crouched, and her chest heaved.

  In refracted brightness, she could almost see what held the flashlight, could almost make out the misshapen arm. It’s coming this way!

  The beam struck her eyes, and her night vision blanked out. An unvoiced scream rattling in her brain, she turned her head until the beam passed on. She blinked. Dark and squat in the diffuse moonlight, something loomed behind her in the reeds.

  A shack! Lurching to her feet, she almost pitched forward, and her leg exploded in pain. Gritting her teeth to keep herself silent, she hobbled toward the hut, looking back with every step.

  The patch of brightness had stopped moving, still a good distance away, and she staggered on, gaining speed as the leg responded to her panicked demands. It’s back there. Way back there. Peering over her shoulder, she noticed the light still had not moved…that it seemed curiously low to the ground.

  The thing had thrown it away. It could be anywhere now. Pain loosened its grip on her side, and she limped rapidly toward the hut. Could be right behind me!

  Off its hinges, the door leaned against a tree. No shelter here. Nowhere to run. Drying mud flats stretched all around in the faint moonlight.

  A weapon—there could be something inside. She had to press against the wall and step across a bent sapling, and even as she entered, she realized this movement reminded her of something. Matty at the shed that rainy morning, that pantomime he did. She tried not to breathe through her nose, but a stench coated the roof of her mouth, gaggi
ng her. Mouth open, she peered back through the doorway. Is it following?

  She stepped on something soft.

  No. Moonlight leaked through the doorway, and the reeking shack swam about her. Run! Slowly, her eyes adjusted. Get away from here! She looked down at something like a black pudding stuffed into a dress and became aware that other things sprawled around her, vague shapes, some in advanced states of liquefaction. Something rustled.

  Her eyes tracked across the moonlit floor.

  From a dark corner inside the shack came a blubbering mockery of words. She backed away, slipped on a mound, fell, and a lump of something slimy as wet clay came away in her hand. She rolled. There was movement in the bulk she tumbled over, and she recoiled with a silent shriek.

  “’Th-thena…” It spoke and reached for her.

  “Steve!” She knelt by him, felt the wetness of his shirtfront. “You’re hurt? Did you crawl in here? No, don’t try to talk.” She watched the doorway. “It’s out there.” She searched his pockets for matches, struck one, and the sulfurous stink found her throat. In the glow, his shirt glistened.

  She looked around at hell, at madness.

  The occupants of the shack lay in positions of abandon. Most had clothing peeled back to expose rotting carcasses. Pocked faces grinned pus yellow and mold green in the light of the tiny flame. Nearby, what appeared to be a male hunched on its face, coarsening gray buttocks exposed, and against the wall, a skeleton grin that fell away in maggots was no less obscene than the legs spread wide beneath a tattered skirt. Puddling flesh left the leg bones bare in spots.

  The match went out, and she inhaled the horrible intimacy of the dark, the air so corrupt even it could probably kill. She pressed Steve’s handkerchief to his throat, tried to stop the blood that gurgled there. “You’ll be all right, Steve. I’ll get you out of here.” She lit another match but couldn’t bring herself to look at his slashed belly. Tightening her jaw against the rising flow of nausea, she closed her eyes against the force of her mind’s rejection. She couldn’t move.

  A distant flash of pain forced her eyes open. The match had gone out. With burned fingertips, she fumbled for another.