6
Right about the time Jen was retuning to the office to finish the last half of her day, Paul was in their garage—the one they’d hardly used, for cars or anything else—taking inventory of what he already had on hand. The smell of new paint, while it had disappeared from the rest of the house, seemed to be trapped in here, where even the floor was painted.
Burn the house to the ground.
It was so obvious.
“But what can I use,” He said aloud, almost whining. There was nothing useful in the garage. Not even a can of gas. There was an rake, a shovel, an axe—not things that could start a decent fire.
Paul ran back into the house. It was all he could do to ignore his own actions. He didn’t think about the consequences, he simply looked around for something. Anything. The stove was electric, wasn’t it? There were no useful chemicals anywhere. He frantically paced from the living room to the kitchen to the dining room, feeling the ultra-plush sinking of the carpet even through his loafers. He didn’t think about how much this carpet had cost, or how long it had taken Jen and him to pick out. He went up the main staircase. In his bedroom, the bathroom, the office—
Hang on. Paul stood, breathing heavily, sounding like athlete asked to run a post-race race he hadn’t known about. He slowly stepped up to the office window. The trees, he thought with a kind of wonder, of course. He could see himself: chopping one down, then another, splintering it into kindling and full logs. The fire would have to be big enough, fast enough, that even if the neighbors saw it burning, the house would be ruined by the time the firemen got here. He could put the logs and kindling and some newspapers on the stove. It would have to work. It would have to.
Why don’t you just use the wood that’s already in the house? a rational thought pleaded. The kitchen table and chairs. The wooden handrail and banister on the staircase. Don’t go out there. That’s where Deeny is.
“No,” Paul said, his voice reflecting off the windowpane, as if it were his view of the forest speaking, and not himself. “No it won’t be enough. The wood in the house will burn too hot and fast and then it will be gone. I need the trees from the forest. I need that. I need it.” He scanned the tree patch, but didn’t see Deeny anywhere. “He’s asleep right now, anyway.”
On his way to the garage, he heard his phone buzzing on the countertop. It was probably Tyson again. Well, no matter. Paul had a feeling that perhaps whatever had prompted Tyson to act didn’t actually care if Tyson bought the house or not. It had just used Tyson to get a message to Paul. And Paul had heard it loud and clear. Burn the house to the ground.
Or maybe it wasn’t divine providence. Maybe it was just a coincidence. In any event, what Paul needed more than anything was to get to those trees.
He grabbed the axe from the garage, grinning, trying to push out the thoughts that (Heeeeeeeere’s Johnny!) had already begun to creep in, thoughts suggesting he was perhaps not handling this situation as level-headedly as he believed. The axe’s smooth wooden grip was cold, firm and real in his hand. He hefted the weight of the blade, getting a feel for it. He hadn’t even touched an axe—other than to move this one—in years.
His father, Randal, dead now (“Missed, but not sorely,” he’d once heard his mother say), had never spent much time with Paul growing up. He had been a rather successful banker. Most of Paul’s memories of the man were some extension of this fact: he went to work and he came back from work. He got ready for work. He complained about work. When he was gone, sometimes for days on end, he was on work trips. But one good memory came back to Paul then as he held the axe, his redemption. It was a memory he hadn’t thought about in a long time: camping with is father at age nine. Now, thinking back, Paul wasn’t even certain he knew where they’d gone. Some lake, but not a big one. It must have been at least kind of close to Chicago. He also didn’t know why they’d gone; it was the only time Paul knew of that they’d done such a thing.
It had been just the two of them, and though the hunched-over, wiry man had complained just about the whole drive up to the campsite (no doubt Paul’s mother had something to do with the arrangement), he’d gotten drunk that night around the fire, and then he’d been happy. To Paul, it had seemed as if his father was happy for the first time in his life. He couldn’t remember even having seen him drink—really drink—before or after that night.
It had been warm, and the fire they’d made was bright and clear. They’d walked out into the trees immediately surrounding the campsite. Crickets and other bugs sang long, small songs. The firelight from camp danced in every tree, creating lively, playful shadows. Randal handed Paul an axe he’d apparently brought along and, slurring only a bit, said, “I used to love this when I was your age.”
He pointed at a tree, maybe five inches thick, directly in front of them. Paul was excited, but didn’t know exactly what it was his father—dressed not in a banker’s suit but, absurdly, in flannel and denim—had wanted him to do.
His father grinned. “Chop it up,” he said.
And all in a rush Paul understood: they were doing something fun, something kind of bad. Paul was going to cut down this tree—this living tree—for no reason. Just for the heck of it. Just because his father had liked to when he was little. Paul smiled then, too, and he’d raised the axe over his shoulder like a baseball bat.
“Nah, no,” his father said. “Let me show you.”
His dad took a few hearty swings at the tree, swinging a bit himself in his inebriation. He showed Paul how to hold it, where to hit, why it was fun.
“You can even yell,” he said.
Young Paul didn’t understood.
His father smiled again, this secret new smile Paul had never seen before.
“Like an Indian. Yell while you chop.” His eyes were dreamy and distant, as unreproachful as two stars in the darkness. “It’s wonderful.”
Paul had. He’d chopped and yelled and learned that his father was right: it was wonderful. He hadn’t been able to down the tree himself, but with his father’s help they’d killed it sure enough. Neither of them had ever mentioned the tree again, Paul instinctively knew it was a one-time thing, and he strongly doubted his mother knew anything about it.
Now, somehow already up to a tree in his own little patch of woods, he let this new axe bite into the bark deeply. Even though the axe had never been used, it had been made for this, and Paul wondered if it was happy to be cutting. Paul felt good, close to his father for the first time since that day. The shockwave of action vibrated through the bones of his arms and back and seemed to jostle loose the workings of his brain. He hit it again. Each time he struck he yelled. If any mortal ears had heard his cries they might have wondered if the sound came from man or beast. A block of heavy overcast had rolled in at some point, and even though it was hardly the beginning of the afternoon, the previously bright, fun day was over.
7
Miller woke from another of his dreams with the face in the forest. It was still dark outside and in, and that was okay. Miller suspected he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, but he was retired—he could take a nap later if he needed it. He wasn’t sweating in terror now. He wasn’t panicked. But was he afraid at all?
Do dogs like the smell of butt? he thought, and smiled sleepily to himself.
Frightened or not, he was beginning to look forward to these encounters with the face. Not because he found any pleasure in them, but because he had been learning. This time he’d even learned the thing’s name.
Deeny.
Miller would sometimes talk to this Deeny for hours. He saw the face, The Creature from the Woods, almost every night, sometimes more than once in a night. The last few dreams he had approached lucidity, not that the ability to more actively control his body helped anything; he knew he was still powerless against the frozen grin.
As if to highlight this, in the more recent dreams Miller was naked, with nothing to protect him from the frozen chill of the wind that served as a constant force
in the forest of his dreamscape. He was truly naked, not even wearing his garments—the sacred white underclothing he wore as a token of the covenants he’d had made to God. In waking, he wore a pair of garments always, except when bathing or changing. Being without those garments, more than any other aspect of his vulnerability, disturbed him. It was as if the creature even had the ability to affect the bonds Miller had forged with God. Could such a monster truly exist? Something so powerful it could poison eternal promises?
The face, of course, never changed: wide lips pulled wider than one might think possible, shining black eyes, a double row of teeth.
It made sense to Miller that he would be the one to see this thing in such a manner. Miller also understood that—at least in a mortal sense—he faced Deeny alone. Miller knew that it was his monster to tackle because Miller was the Guardian of the evil in those trees. Had been for a long time. He had always taken a kind of cold pride in it.
Not that he would ever share that particular title, Guardian, with his Brethren and Sisters over at Peoa Ward in Oakley. They would not have believed him. They had fully entered the twenty-first century. He got it. But Miller had strong reason to believe the powers of Satan were much more than what was taught over the pulpit. He knew that the true nature of evil was more akin to the weirdest parts of the Old and New Testament than people cared to admit: giants walking the earth, evil spirits, creatures like Legion.
He thought about what he’d learned. The creature’s name. Miller wouldn’t have even guessed that the thing had a name. It made him realize how little he really did understand about all this. Now that he’d gotten closer to Deeny, he saw there was one part of him that Miller had not yet been allowed to access, despite his constant probing and poking, a part that Deeny protected with psychic barriers. Deeny guarded his past more fervently than a child’s embarrassing mistake, or a spy’s microfiche. Miller would get to that past; he felt he had to if he wanted to be equipped to deal with the monster. If he wanted to start the massive undertaking of righting all that had been wronged.
“I still believe you can do that,” he said, looking up at his ceiling. “I don’t know how you’ll do it, but I think you can.
Or maybe, Miller thought, I just want to believe.
He decided to get up, even though it was only 4:00 am. He started the pot on the stove, looking forward to some Postum. Did he believe that Deeny was Satan incarnate? No, he did not. Did he believe that the Evil One’s reach went beyond simply tempting the children of God? Oh yes, he did. What he didn’t know was if Deeny was aware of him, Miller, at all. It was true they had conversed on a number of occasions, but Miller had the feeling that he was speaking with a subconscious aspect of the monster. He couldn’t have said why, but he trusted his instincts on the matter.
Of course some outside help would be wonderful, but no one in this town would listen. Not those Kenners. Not Don Harmon. Not his neighbors. Not the Bishop in his Peoa Ward. Even though they knew those trees were evil. They knew because they felt it. He stared again out at the tree patch, even though he couldn’t see it well in the dark—not that he wanted to.
Looking at the trees, visible or not, always made him think of the first time he’d seen them. If Mary was here, he thought with a familiar, longing ache, she would understand.
†
In 1956 Clancy Miller was seventeen years old, and the name “Clancy” didn’t sound quite so strange. Graduation was only two months away, and Clancy knew exactly how he was going to congratulate himself: he was going to marry Mary (and enchanting phrase if ever he’d heard one), and they were going to start their family. Maybe even move to Salt Lake, or—as she sometimes teased him—to California, the Land of Sunshine or some such nonsense.
Even in those conservative days of yore some of his friends had razzed him for being so anxious to settle down. But Clancy didn’t care; he knew who he was and what he wanted. God did not yet have the same prominent role in Clancy’s life He would later have, but Clancy was already an active and believing Mormon. Many young men in the church would have been thinking about full-time missionary service, but Clancy didn’t see that when he looked at the future. All he saw was Mary.
Clancy didn’t live in Peoa yet. All that was to come later. In fact, even though Peoa was only about fifteen minutes away, he’d probably been there twice and spared about as many thoughts for it. He lived with his mother, father, and sister a little farther down Highway 32, in a city called Kamas. And it was a city, if you wanted to get technical. A good one. Good in a way Clancy will later learn some places are not.
He and Mary had agreed to visit their friend Robert, who was staying with his sick grandmother in Peoa. Robert was a senior, too, but he sometimes seemed much older than Clancy. And sometimes much younger. Clancy, who often said he didn’t have a creative bone in his body, didn’t really understand Robert, who was a writer. Robert lived for writing. He could almost always be found at the diner, or the library steps, reading something. If you didn’t see him around anywhere you knew he was either writing or out with some girl. He’d already written a book, not that it had been published. He’d loaned Clancy a typed copy once it was finished, wanting to know what Clancy had thought. It was a science-fiction book, the kind of thing Clancy wouldn’t normally read. But Clancy read it because they were friends.
In the story, an evil bald woman from 2012 (an unthinkably distant year) started her own society, using some technology she’d been given by a couple of men from Jupiter. She had even made new islands way out in the middle of the ocean, and one country at a time, she’d taken over the whole world, only to die from an advanced form of the common cold, which Robert’s book suggested would never be cured, no matter the era. The plot had been ridiculous, certainly, and Clancy felt no more love for the genre after having read it than he’d felt when he’d begun, but he did notice Robert’s raw talent. The descriptions, characterization, word choice (aspects of writing Clancy had never really thought of while reading a book) had leapt out at him as being much better than a typical seventeen-year-old kid could produce. He’d told Robert all he needed was a really good story, and he’d be set. The writing skill was there.
Clancy had no idea why Robert wanted them to come visit on this day in particular, but he and Mary hadn’t had other plans. Years later Clancy would wonder, perhaps thousands of times, how their lives might have been different if only someone had asked them to go bowling before Robert rang.
They drove in Clancy’s baby, the two-tone Plymouth Belvedere he’d purchased just two weeks before. The car was the physical representation of every dollar he’d ever saved. He knew if he’d been smart he would have factored in a wedding ring there somewhere. But he was young, and his license for impulsivity still had that hot-off-the-press smell.
The blue and white car passed beneath the blue and white sky at a speed of fifty-five miles an hour. Though it was a bit too cold to roll the windows down, they’d done so anyway, intoxicated by a sense of freedom and romance so strong they could feel it draping about them like a happy shroud as inevitable as death. Mary’s hair was clipped close to her head in the fashion of the time, so it twitched with the wind, rather than flowed; it was a deep deep brown that sometimes played itself as black. Her lipsticked lips were full, but her eyes were fuller. They made promises at each batting, and these were promises Clancy believed she was aiming to keep.
Clancy considered it more than a little lucky that Mary had a clean mind and way about her. He wanted to wait til marriage, but a face like that… a fella could stand to take a cold shower after staring at it too long. Thankfully, she was strong where he was not. They’d neck in the backseat, but she wasn’t afraid to bat away his hands when they entered no-go zones, always with a joke or a smile so Clancy didn’t feel too embarrassed.
“Clance,” she said, swimming her hand through the air streams outside, “you didn’t just buy this car for me, did you? I mean, you didn’t get it just so I’d be impressed.”
&
nbsp; “You wish,” he said, grinning, his own dark locks of hair moving with the wind so far as his short cut would allow.
“I’m serious,” she said, goose bumps breaking out from the cold. She drew her arm back in.
“So am I.”
When they got to Peoa they parked outside of Robert’s grandmother’s little house. The place had seen better days; the yard was an exhibition of weeds, some varieties of which Clancy was sure he’d never before seen. When he and Mary got a house of their own Clancy knew he’d hunt down each and every invader of their lawn. It would be a place of perfect green.
“Are we going in?” Mary said.
“I don’t know. Robert just said to come by. He has something planned, I think.”
Robert popped out the front door before they’d even had a chance to knock. Clancy was surprised to see a pack of cigarettes in the front t-shirt pocket of his long-time friend. Not only was he too young for such things, tobacco use was against church doctrine. Rob’s baby-blonde hair was slicked back, too, something he’d only recently taken to doing. He looked something like a goofy James Dean.
“Hiya, fellas!” Rob said. Referring to any and all young women as “fellas” was a common joke for him, a joke that Clancy didn’t really get. “Let’s go start a fire.”
Mary said, “A fire? In the middle of the day?”
“You heard me, handsome. I got some dogs, some sticks, and some Pepsi.” He slung one arm around each of their shoulders, so he was hanging in between them. “We go’an have us a regular ol’ cookout!” He had a glint in his eyes Clancy didn’t recognize. One he didn’t like.
Robert herded them like a pair of sheep to Clancy’s car. “Come ON!” he squawked. “Let’s get going, puh-leeze! I don’t want my grandma to come out and see you guys. She’d probably put the lot of us to work on the yard.”
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