The image of his mother replayed in his head, covered in blood, her once loving eyes projecting the fire of the witch’s hate, the hag's smile stretching across his mother's pretty face.
She's dead. No … worse … Undead. This thought caused his tears to pump out harder, blurring his vision.
I should have told someone. Now my mom is gone. It's my fault.
My fault … My fault … My fault …
In his mind, Lewis chanted this self-defeating mantra, rocking to and fro on the stump like a mental patient, snot and tears flowing from his face. He wobbled for several minutes, lost in sorrow, when approaching footfalls snapped him back to the reality of his surroundings. Lewis covered his mouth to dampen his sobs and panicked breaths.
They found me!
The footsteps advanced down the trail, heading straight for the hidden fort where Lewis sat. He held his breath as the crunching steps slowed a few feet from where he hunkered beneath the camouflage.
Lewis wiped his tears away but still couldn't see through the thick vines and foliage of the fort, couldn't make out the owner of the noises. The movement stopped next to Lewis for several nerve-fraying seconds, then receded, moving along the connecting trail that led deeper into the woods and circled back toward the homes. The same trail he and Clinton had used to cut through Old Man Boyd's backyard. As the footfalls waned, Lewis breathed again. He caught a faint whiff of a familiar odor.
Cologne?
The pleasant scent evaporated before Lewis could remember where he'd smelled it before.
After several tense moments, Lewis wiped his nose with his arm, cleared the tears away, and gathered his courage. He emerged from the fort, the brightness of the moon in the star-studded sky surprising him after the confined darkness. He waited, listening to the woods for any sounds of pursuit. When none came, Lewis decided to wade further into the dark forest, toward the bike trails, maybe even going as far as the train tracks, leaving his house and the nightmare unfolding there as far behind as possible. He even considered fulfilling his train-hopping fantasy, leaving all his problems behind for someone else to deal with.
He scurried down the path to the main trail and turned in the direction of his deliverance. However, after only a few steps toward freedom, he stopped.
I have to go back. I have to do something.
Lewis stood on the trail, debating the quandary of which direction to go, when more sounds of movement approached his new position. He plunged into the thick bushes bordering the trail just in time, as a lone figure came into view, trudging along with mindless determination. The woods sure are popular tonight, he thought, and shook his head, surprised at the calmness of his inner voice. Lewis froze, holding his breath once again.
The shock—that Lewis confused for calm—turned to alarm as he recognized Jason Reed's oafish gait. Moonlight gleamed off something cradled in Jason's left arm—glass of some sort. The boy's right arm covered his mid-section, pressing a lumpy mass to his body. Lewis gagged as Jason's scent assaulted him like a punch to the nose, his eyes filling with tears of a different kind now.
The odor emanating from Jason Reed prompted the memory of Hurricane David and the three-day power-outage it had left in its wake as it blasted through town a few years ago. The miasma of rotting food in Lewis's dead refrigerator had smelled a lot like this: the putrid combination of decay and the sulfurous smog of rotten eggs.
As Jason marched past Lewis and out of sight, the smell dissipated. Lewis inhaled deeply, swallowing the fresh air.
Where was Jason going in such a hurry? … The tree, maybe?
Lewis knew what he had to do. He couldn't just run and leave his friends and neighbors. He had to follow the shambling, decaying corpse of his sworn enemy deep into the woods at night, to find the tree of an ancient evil witch he apparently had no hope of destroying.
And from the looks of things, he had to do it alone.
III
The Left Hand Path
27
A short time earlier, Dolores Norton, unable to sleep, left her snoring husband in bed and waddled her way to the kitchen to clean up the mess left over from supper. Whenever insomnia struck her, no matter the time, this is what she did—clean the house.
She leaned over the sink, humming an off-key tune as she scrubbed the dishes, staring through her reflection in the kitchen window and out into the quiet night, when she saw the most peculiar thing. She bent toward the window for a better look. The boy from across the way, little Lewis Frazier, was running like a lunatic past her house as if fleeing from a fire. That seemed odd enough for this late hour, but the truly strange thing came next. Pursuing the young boy was a man she thought she recognized; however, she couldn't be sure since she had never seen this man naked before. She did a double take, her eyes in danger of popping from their sockets and splashing into the soapy water. She dropped the dish from her grip to the floor with a loud crash.
A stark naked man was chasing a boy down her street.
She shook the suds from her hands and dried them on her apron before snatching the phone from the wall. The rotary dial spun into action as she called the police.
When she got the operator, she blurted, “Chief Richards please, it's Dolores Norton. And hurry up.”
Chief Richards yawned wearily. He was starting to get a little tired of this neighborhood. This was the third time he'd been called out here this week, probably more times than all of last year. The hours spent in the mucky woods searching for those kids had exhausted him. He wondered again as he passed the ornate sign at the entrance, why the hell is it called Poisonwood Estates? There isn't a poisonwood tree within a hundred miles of here.
The call had come in as he’d been getting ready to head home for some much needed rest. Good ole Dolores Norton: The Queen of Hyperbole. That's what they’d called her on the debate team back in high school. She sure could spin a story, which had been great for debate, but a pain in the ass when you're a cop.
He’d been sure things would quiet down and get back to normal when the welcome news of his deputy arresting Dave Burton had reached the station. The suspect was there now, passed out in a cell, recovering from a night out drinking and brawling.
Chief Richards wasn't convinced of the man's alibi; Dave Burton swore he'd been out of town visiting friends for the last week, but so far nobody could corroborate his claims. The chief was well aware of the man's history of violence and felt him more than capable of murdering his ex-wife. Whether or not the drunkard had the smarts to pull off the kidnapping of three kids, in broad daylight no less, and on his own, was another story. He had to wait until morning for the idiot to sober up, then he hoped to get some answers.
As far as this call was concerned, he felt certain it was just some punks messing around, excited from recent events. Mooning and streaking has become an epidemic among the local teens. And Dolores Norton had a well-known penchant for melodrama and misinformation, so calling in the cavalry on her account would be a gross misappropriation of manpower—at least that's what the Mayor would call it. This seemed like something he could probably take care of on his own, quick-like, and be done for the night.
Dolores stood on her porch, her ample form wrapped in a bathrobe, as the chief swung his car into her driveway. Beside her, slouching and yawning, stood her husband. The scowl on the tired old man's face led the chief to believe that this man could definitely be capable of murdering his wife.
She shuffled over to the car when the chief climbed out. “Chief, thank the lord.”
“Hello, Dolores, tell me again what happened.”
When she concluded her vividly detailed and long-winded story the chief paused writing in his notepad and gave her a skeptical glare, one eyebrow arched.
“Completely naked?” he asked.
“Naked as a newborn. And bloody like one too,” she said, then added, “he may have been wearing socks now that I think about it.”
“Bloody? You didn't mention that earlier,” the chie
f said, perturbed.
Mrs. Norton shook her head. “I guess I just realized it. Sorry.”
“Okay, Dolores. You and your husband go back to bed. I'll handle it.”
“Thank you chief, we will, but I don't think I'll be sleeping for a while. This whole darn neighborhood has gone plum crazy.” She shooed her half-conscious husband into the house and followed, waving a hand to the chief before closing the door.
Dolores's last words stuck and played over in the chief's mind like a skipping record. He heard the deadbolt of her front door catch—a period at the end of the looping sentence. This place has been unpredictable as of late, he thought. He returned to his vehicle and used the radio to call his deputy—backup might be a good idea after all. Knowing it would take at least fifteen to twenty minutes for his deputy to arrive, Chief Richards decided to take a look around on his own. He considered bringing the shotgun, then figured he wouldn't need it against one naked man, and left it locked in the cab; his revolver should be protection enough.
Stepping from his cruiser, he noticed the quiet shrouding the neighborhood. It was late, sure, and most sensible folks were already in bed, but absent was the constant drone of night insects commonplace in summer. He'd heard people say, “the silence was deafening” before, but never thought he would have use for the phrase. He did now. Despite the heat, a shiver ran up his spine.
He gathered his wits and decided to visit the Frazier house first. If Dolores was correct about the kid's identity then he needed to inform the parents. He crossed the street and strolled up the path to the shadows of their front porch. He instantly noticed how dark the home appeared. The porch light was off as well. The shudder danced up his back again. It wasn't just the absence of lights, but something else.
The house seemed … dead.
Shaking his head, he stepped up to the front door and knocked.
“Talk about a rude awakening,” he mumbled, his shoes squishing on the welcome mat.
The house remained dark. He knocked again, louder this time, then rang the doorbell. The chime resonated throughout the home—a hollow, somber tune.
Still nothing. No sounds from within. The notion of the house being dead returned.
Chief Richards knew something was wrong here. Somebody should have answered the door. Maybe the shotgun wasn't overkill after all. He turned, headed back down the path, mentally cursing himself for not taking this call more seriously. If it had come from anyone else other than Dolores Norton he most likely would have. Hell, if the drunk in the cell had been telling the truth, then there might still be some crazy on the loose. He was pondering this misjudgment when he sensed movement somewhere in front of him.
He glanced up to the house directly across the street and noticed a black vertical rectangle where the door should be. Why the hell is that door open? He stopped and freed the oversized flashlight from his belt, pressing the switch. The distance proved too far, the beam couldn't penetrate the darkness beyond the doorframe, so the chief, with trepidation, crossed the street and inched closer to the black entrance.
As he approached the doorway he saw fleeting movement within the house, a slight shift of shadows in the gloom. Chief Richards reached the porch of Clyde Boyd, his shoes crinkling on the fake grass doormat, and stopped when he heard a peculiar sound. He moved his feet on the artificial turf again, trying to recreate the noise; he must have mistaken the crackle of his shoes on the mat for the sound of hushed laughter—the breathy sound of a child's giggle to be exact, riddling his scalp tight with gooseflesh.
He directed the light through the open doorway and regarded the room in full detail. Books littered the area, along with furniture, disarrayed and flipped over. Then, with a dropping sensation in his bowels, he saw the blood. The red splashes stood out in the light, brilliant against the white pages of several open books.
With his light, the chief traced the trail of blood from the middle of the room to his shoes. Turning, he illuminated the dark red trail from the porch, across the drive, and to the grass of the front lawn—a perfect line pointing to the Frazier house.
“What the hell?”
Behind him, shuffling came from somewhere inside the dark house.
He spun, shining the beam through the doorway again, sliding his pistol from its leather holster. “This is the Chief of Police. Come out with your hands in the air.”
The house remained quiet. Chief Richards mentally counted to three, and entered Clyde Boyd's home, following the blood trail on the carpet through the maze of overturned furniture and books, all the while thinking, where the hell is my goddamn deputy?
“This is Police Chief Richards. Show yourself.”
The thrumming pulse in his ears was his only answer.
The blood trail led him to the left, to a closed door. Crimson handprints stood out on the white wood of the door like a child's finger paintings stuck to the fridge of a proud parent. The brass doorknob also displayed glistening red. The chief stopped in front of the door, blood welling up around his shoes from the saturated rug. He wedged the flashlight in his left armpit, turned the tacky knob with his left hand as his right fist clenched the revolver next to his ear. In a single motion, he pushed the door open, retrieved the light, pointing it, and the gun, into the dark room.
A woman lie on the floor in the middle of the room, on her back, her slender arms spread out as if making snow angels in the carpet. Stacks of books surrounded her, filling the room with the pleasant musty odor of an old library. Then a second smell hit him in the face like a slap from a jilted lover—the unmistakable stench of blood and spoiled meat.
Shielding his nose and mouth with the back of his gun hand, Chief Richards examined the woman in the cone of light. The copious blood soaking her nightgown appeared fresh, the malodorous scent of the room led him to believe otherwise.
He searched the wall for a light switch, found one, and flipped it several times with no result. A quick check of the ceiling revealed the overhead light, its bulb missing.
Holstering his pistol, Chief Richards crouched to perform the obligatory pulse check on the obviously deceased woman, his hand trembling as it touched her cold throat. She was stone dead, nothing shocking there. He directed the beam of light to her face and shook his head, downcast, as he recognized the woman from earlier that morning. He had questioned her about the Burton woman, and remembered with sadness how kind and pretty she’d been.
He had to call this in, and his desire to leave this tomb of a room overwhelmed him, but still he remained crouched above the woman, her pale delicate face and the events of the day draining his spirit. That's when the sound from earlier came again—the low giggling of a mischievous child. He raised the light to the stacks of books behind the dead woman's head and sucked in a terrified breath at the image glaring back at him: a pale, leering face of a young boy, a grin stretched below demonic blood-red eyes. He recognized Jerry Harris from the many photos provided by his mother.
The chief reached for his gun again, instinct shouting that this was not some innocent child. But before he could grab the weapon, cold hands covered his ears, grasping his head, pain lancing his scalp where his hair ripped free. Strong hands forced his gaze down to the woman lying at his knees. His empty gun hand latched onto one of the woman's frigid wrist while his other hand trained the light on her face; he cried out, an incoherent tremulous babble of panic. The woman on the floor smiled, her powerful hands pulling him in for a lover's kiss.
She's dead. I checked her. No pulse. She's dead!
These were the only thoughts his horror-stricken brain could assemble, overloaded with fear, as the dead woman forced his head to her grinning mouth. Her face lunged forward, and she bit into the soft flesh of his throat. The searing pain snapped the chief back into motion. With a bubbling shriek, he jerked his neck free from her clamped jaws, leaving behind a large morsel of himself that she swallowed whole with a sigh of gluttonous pleasure.
The chief watched as someone's blood splashed acr
oss the white flesh of the woman's face, causing her to convulse in rapturous bliss. He fell backward on the seat of his pants, thinking, That's a lot of blood. That can't be my blood. I'm not hurt that bad. It doesn't hurt that bad. He probed the bite with his gun hand, feeling the hot blood pumping over his fingers from his torn jugular. His essence spilled down his chest, under his shirt, and pooled in his lap. The blood-covered woman writhed and moaned before him in the glare of the flashlight, like a Gothic beauty from a movie; a scene from an old Hammer horror film.
He heard a soft click, and light filled the room, revealing the hellish tableau in vibrant hues of red. The small child—momentarily forgotten—stood by a lamp, the cruel smile still on his face. The child examined the lamp with a look of wonder as if he'd never seen one before, the smile never wavering.
Chief Richards fumbled for the revolver still on his hip with numbing, blood-slick fingers. Somehow he managed to free the weapon and lift the quaking revolver, aiming for the boy's smirking face. His weakened muscles ignored his pleas as he strained to squeeze the trigger.
The boy set the lamp down delicately and focused on the trembling gun, a bored expression replacing the smile. He sauntered over to the dying cop, reached out and seized the weapon. He regarded the cold, black instrument with disdain for a brief moment, then slammed the grip of the gun on the crown of the chief's head.
Bone crunched, and lights flashed when the child whipped him with his own pistol. The chief's blurred vision cleared just enough to see the woman launch onto him, forcing him onto his back, wet growls filling his ears as she lapped and gnawed at his draining throat.
Song of a Lost Child: A Horror Novel (Invasive Species Book 1) Page 14