The Woods Are Dark
Page 15
No!
She gritted her teeth, trying not to scream.
“KRULL!”
Her body quaked, shaken by the blast of his roar.
He is the Devil! Cordelia was right!
Oh Christ, we should’ve run!
Any moment, he would fling aside the skins that covered her.
Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women…
From his hiding place behind a draping deerskin, Robbins watched the huge dark shape stride toward the far corner.
His sword clacked against the wall.
The creature swung around. It stood motionless. Robbins held his breath. He gazed at the thing, and shuddered.
Its wide, leathery face looked red in the candle-light. One eye was gone, its socket a dark slit as if the lid had been torn away. The remaining eye seemed to glare at Robbins with contempt.
Then it lowered to the stack of skins near Robbins’s feet. Robbins looked. He saw Neala’s hair. Inches of it curled from beneath one of the skins, glossy in the golden light.
The creature lunged. Its massive hand grabbed Neala’s hair and jerked.
The head came free.
It swung slowly as the single eye studied it.
Robbins staggered from behind the deerskin. With both hands, he swung the saber. Its blade struck, lopping off the outstretched arm. The arm dropped to the floor, Neala’s hair still gripped in its hand.
Robbins swung at the creature’s neck. Its remaining arm battered the sword from his grip. It flung Robbins against the wall. He slammed it hard, and fell.
Neala, hidden in the far corner, heard the struggle. Thrusting aside the deerskins, she saw the thing standing over Johnny, its back to her. It reached down for him with its one arm. It grabbed him by the throat.
Silently, Neala raced across the room. She leaped onto the massive back, grabbed a handful of wild hair, and tore its throat open with her knife.
Blood sprayed onto Johnny.
The creature whirled, bellowing, and threw itself backward against a wall. Neala cried out. She lost her knife. She slid off its back.
It reached down for her. It gripped the stubble of her hair and pulled, but lost its hold. So it clutched her shirt front. It lifted her off the floor.
Blood spilled onto her face from its ripped throat. Its mouth opened wide. She shut her eyes, and felt its teeth on the sides of her face. They clamped tightly.
Suddenly, the beast staggered. Its teeth kept their grip, but the hand let go of her shirt, and she dropped to the floor. As she hit, the teeth cut into her cheeks.
“It’s all right.”
Johnny’s voice.
The jaws opened, and the pressure of the head went away. Johnny, crouching over her, held the monstrous head in both hands. He tossed it aside.
Then he picked her up, and held her tightly.
Later, Robbins unknotted Nealas long, soft hair. He pulled it from the jawbone of the old head, and tossed the head outside.
Among the crosses in front of the cabin, he found one more sturdy than the others. On it, he impaled the head of Manfred Krull. He propped it near the cabin door.
“Sir!”
Turning, he saw a man moving through the barrier. The thin, pale man casually pushed aside the pikes as he came forward.
Neala took hold of Robbinss arm. He saw that she held the saber.
“Be not afraid,” said the man.
He stepped out of the crosses. A skirt of hair floated about his legs as he moved. He stopped in front of Robbins.
“You have slain the Devil,” he said. “With his life, you have purchased your salvation. We shall escort you to safety.”
“We can go?” Robbins asked.
“Tell no one what you have seen in these woods, or your lives shall be forfeit.”
“What about the others?” Neala asked.
“There are no others.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Cordie, crouched in the darkness, watched Robbins and Neala follow the old man through the barrier of heads.
She wondered if she might join them.
But she remembered Grar’s warning.
Your death will be horrible beyond nightmares.
It still applied. It had to.
She lay flat among the crosses, and pressed her eyes tightly shut.
She was finished.
Dead.
Oh Christ.
At least, if she didn’t move, the Krulls might not notice her. She could die here, and save herself from them.
Time passed.
A long, long time.
Longer than Cordie thought a night could last. Then the sky turned pale blue, and finally the sun came up.
Hearing a sound, she raised her head. And saw Heth swinging his legless torso through the crosses. His eyes met hers.
“No,” she whimpered.
A strange noise filled her ears, a fluttering whup-wbup-whup. She raised her eyes. At the far edge of the clearing, a helicopter sped over the treetops.
“Jesus,” she muttered.
She glanced at Heth. His hideous, bloated face seemed to grin.
She scrambled to her feet. She raced toward the cabin, waving her arms high, not giving a damn about the crosses she bumped, the heads that tumbled before her.
The helicopter set down in front of the cabin.
The passenger, a tall woman, stepped out. She wore a red jumpsuit. She carried a rifle.
“Sherri!”
Cordie rushed toward her.
Sherri shouldered the rifle.
“No! Please! I’m sorry!”
The shot smashed through the roar of the rotors. Cordie spun around. Heth, a yard behind her, teetered on his outthrust arms.
A hole in his forehead.
He fell facedown.
“Get your ass over here!” Sherri yelled.
Cordie ran to her.
Channel 3 News July 2
“On the local front, a Mariposa County Sheriff’s posse has failed to return from their search of a wilderness area west of Barlow. The eighteen men entered the rugged forest terrain on Tuesday to investigate reports of multiple killings…”
EPILOGUE
“What ho! What ho!” Lander sang quietly as he limped through the dark woods. His gunshot leg had nearly healed.
“What ho! What ho! Sing merry-a-day!”
He carried the girl through the clearing, and dropped her at his feet. She groaned.
Not dead?
“Passing strange,” he muttered. “Soon fixed.”
He slid the hatchet from his belt.
Her eyes opened. She reached up, and clutched a handful of hair, nearly pulling down his nice new skirt. “Please,” she said.
“Please? The King’s tongue?” He knelt beside her. He gazed at her moonlit body, a body he’d taken such pleasure from, earlier, after bashing her head. A young, lithe body. “What do they call you?” he asked.
“Lilly.”
“Lilly. Oh, Lily sweet and fair, how like a flower you are.” He touched her small breasts. “Buds and petals. Sweet nectar. Shall I spare you? Shall I take you to my palace?”
Her hand slipped through the hanging hair, and touched him.
“Perchance I shall.
He put the hatchet away, and lifted her. He kissed her breast. “Come, let’s away. We shall be God’s spies.”
He carried her into the forest of impaled heads.
“Grar,” said the girl, looking at one.
“You knew him? A fellow of infinite jest. Quite chapfallen.”
“A prick” said Lilly.
Lander laughed. “What ho! What ho! So merry-a-day” he sang, and carried her toward the cabin.
Channel 3 News July 11
“On the local front, a twelve-man search-and-rescue team has failed to return from the wilderness area west of Barlow where, last week, a sheriff’s posse vanished without a trace…”
About the Author
RICHA
RD Laymon is the author of over 30 novels and 65 short stories. Though a native of Illinois and a long-time Californian, his name is more familiar to readers in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, as well as much of the rest of the world where he is published in fifteen foreign languages. He has written such acclaimed novels as The Beast House, The Cellar, After Midnight, The Lake, Into the Fire, Come Out Tonight, Body Rides, To Wake the Dead, No Sanctuary, Island, Among the Missing, One Rainy Night, In the Dark, and Bite. The Traveling Vampire Show won a Bram Stoker Award for Novel of the Year in 2001. Two of his earlier novels (Flesh and Funland) and a short story collection A Good, Secret Place) previously had been nominated for Bram Stoker Awards as well.
Check out the Richard Laymon Kills! Web site at http://www.ains.com.au/~gerlach/rlaymon2.htm
Other Leisure books by Richard Laymon:
CUTS
TRIAGE (Anthology)
THE MIDNIGHT TOUR
THE BEAST HOUSE
THE CELLAR
INTO THE FIRE
AFTER MIDNIGHT
THE LAKE
COME OUT TONIGHT
RESURRECTION DREAMS
ENDLESS NIGHT
BODY RIDES
BLOOD GAMES
TO WAKE THE DEAD
NO SANCTUARY
DARKNESS, TELL US
NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER
ISLAND
THE MUSEUM OF HORRORS (Anthology)
IN THE DARK
THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW
AMONG THE MISSING
ONE RAINY NIGHT
BITE
The Woods Are dark
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Original edition copyright ©1981 by Richard Laymon
Restored edition copyright © 2008 by Ann Laymon
Introduction copyright © 2008 by Kelly Laymon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
The name “Leisure Books” and the stylized “L” with design a trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us on the web at: www.dorchesterpub.com
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