by Ron Ripley
Isiah nodded and didn’t argue, a sure sign of his exhaustion.
She dressed quickly in thick clothes, wrapped herself in a large cloak and exited the house. The wind struck at her as she closed the door behind her and she gasped at the bitter chill that settled into her bones. She pushed her way through a narrow trail carved in the snow, her eyes focused on the rough-hewn door of the barn.
When she reached it, Sarah threw it open, hurried inside and slammed it closed behind her. Her nostrils flared at the powerful odor of dung and blood, and she whipped around. The oxen had pressed themselves into a corner, as had the horse. All three of the animals’ eyes were wild, only the whites showing.
It took Sarah a moment see what was wrong.
The boys sat on the floor together, Samson across from Joseph.
Joseph had taken off his coat and pulled his shirt over his head. A pruning knife was in his hand, and the boy was dead. His entrails were spread about the floor and across his lap. A soft smile on his deathly pale face.
Samson sat Indian style, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands as he looked at his brother.
“Mother,” Samson said after a moment of silence had passed between them.
“Samson,” Sarah whispered. “What happened to Joseph?”
“I asked him what was inside of him?” Samson answered. “What made him different? What was it that he had that I did not? He did not know. So I told him I wanted to see the unseen.”
Samson turned and looked at her. “I had hoped he would be able to answer the question. We both were.”
Samson sighed, shook his head and returned his attention to his dead half-brother.
“Well,” Samson said with a shrug. “it seems we are both disappointed now.”
Samson Bonus Scene Chapter 6: The Graves Have Grown, June 11th, 1739
The years since Joseph’s death had been difficult.
Isiah had grown harsher in that time. His patience was thin at best, absent at worst.
It had been absent more often than not.
The day Joseph had died, Isiah, and the other men from the town had hacked at the frozen earth for hours. They had managed to carve a shallow grave, and the dead boy had been laid in it. Stones were torn from a nearby wall and laid atop the body to keep the creatures at bay.
When the weather had grown warmer, Joseph’s grave was moved to in front of the house. As the years passed, a burial ground sprouted up around Joseph’s headstone. The bodies were of peddlers and traders, Christian and heathen Indians. A few Frenchmen who had passed through.
All had fallen under Samson’s wicked tongue and killed themselves or others. And while Isiah did not accuse Samson of the crimes, he began to suspect the boy of an unnatural involvement in the deaths.
Sarah had watched in silence as the boy grew older but did not seem to age. He was nearly thirteen and looked no more than ten. His ability to manage his father and others remained, but Isiah’s sharp tongue still lashed out and brought anger to Samson’s face.
Sarah walked out of the rear door and stepped into the yard as she called, “Isiah!”
When her husband didn’t respond she frowned and spoke his name again.
“Here, mother!” Samson replied from the front of the house.
Sarah walked around the side of the house, ignoring the headstones in the front yard. She saw Samson sitting beneath the chestnut tree which grew a short distance from the front door.
“Where is your father?” she asked Samson.
“With me,” Samson said cheerfully.
“Where?” Sarah started to say as she stepped around the fore of the tree, but the question died on her lips as she saw her husband.
Her husband was mangled, as though torn to shreds by wild dogs. He was naked, his skin hanging in long, hideous strips. She heard herself speaking, asking questions to which Isiah made a single, terrible reply.
He held up his left hand, showing to her the long and flaccid remnant of his tongue.
Gasping for air, Sarah turned her attention to Samson.
Samson smiled at her, a sweet gesture made horrific not only by what Isiah had done but by the words that came from Samson’s own mouth.
“You see, mother,” Samson said, “Your husband has learned that if he cannot keep a civil tongue in his head, he will not keep it there at all.”
Samson Bonus Scene Chapter 7: Before the Dawn Arrives, June 12th, 1739
Sarah sat beside the fireplace, the only sound was that of Samson’s light snores from his small bed. The lamp hung above her, the wick burning the precious oil and casting a pale light down upon her.
She could not sleep.
Each time she closed her eyes, Sarah saw Isiah’s devastated form, the tongue in his hand. She could hear Samson’s comment.
For several years she had hoped, in vain, that someone other than Samson had been responsible for the deaths. That each one had been some harsh, cruel coincidence which placed the blame at her child’s feet.
With the death of Isiah from his self-inflicted injuries, she could no longer harbor any doubts.
Samson had been the one, the cause and the reason for all of the deaths and for each person who had been maimed. From the old Indian woman who had eaten her own eyes to Isiah. All of it turned back to Samson.
All of it.
In the dim light of the lamp, Sarah held her knitting on her lap. It lay there, forgotten. In one hand she held a bodkin, the long knitting needle warm against her flesh, reflecting her own heat.
The bodkin was carved from whalebone, a gift from her stepson Roland, sent up after the death of Joseph. It was a beautiful and practical item, one which had brought her great pleasure, and had proved entirely serviceable. With it, she had fashioned clothes to keep the family warm in the brutal winters of the colony.
Sarah held the bodkin up and examined it in the light.
The tool was long and thin. Light but strong. Over the years the point upon it had not been dulled. It could still thread easily between the thickest strands of yarn.
Samson muttered in his sleep and rolled onto his side, his back facing her.
For a long time, she stared at him, feeling nothing.
Finally, she placed her knitting on the floor and stood up. She walked across the floor until she stood beside her son. Then she knelt down and stared at him. She wondered, not for the first time if he was a punishment for some sin she had committed. If he was some sort of test of her faith.
Have I been found lacking? she asked herself. Is Isiah’s death upon my head? And what of Joseph’s?
Sarah had no answer.
She reached up, brushed the hair off Samson’s neck and thrust the bodkin into the base of his skull.
* * *
Jonathan Bonus Scene Chapter 8: Enjoying the Afternoon, July 4th, 1976
Jonathan Engberg sat in his folding chair, a cold Budweiser in his hand. Mosquitoes whined as they passed by him and he swatted at them with a lazy hand. He could hear his wife, Juliet, singing in the kitchen, and a moment later their daughter, Kathryn, went racing past him with her friend Denise. The two eight-year-old girls held sparklers in their hands, the small, thin fireworks spewing sparks out behind them.
His daughter was a thin child, so thin that he and Juliet had spoken with their family doctor about ways to get her to gain weight. The solution they had finally decided upon was a peanut butter sandwich and a milkshake with raw eggs every night before bed. Kathryn didn’t mind, most nights, but when she did put up a fuss, Jonathan slipped her a dollar.
He finished his beer, put the empty can on the small table beside him and smiled.
The nation was celebrating its two-hundredth anniversary, and later in the week, he and his wife would be enjoying their tenth.
Behind him, the screen door opened and Jonathan glanced over his shoulder. Juliet stepped down into the backyard with the same lithe gracefulness that had caught his eye twelve years earlier. He smiled at her, and she returned
it, her lips full and perfect. Her dark brown hair was piled up in a loose bun on the back of her head, and strands of the same clung to the sides of her face from sweat.
Juliet carried a pair of beers and handed one to him as she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek before she sat down in the other chair. She wrinkled her nose as she did so.
“You need to shave,” she said. “Felt like I was kissing a piece of sandpaper.”
“You were,” he said, taking a sip of the cold beer.
“Unacceptable, Mr. Engberg,” she said. “Part of our marriage contract if you recall.”
Jonathan chuckled at their private joke. When they had first began to date, he had shaved every other day, since his facial hair had refused to confirm his status as an eighteen-year-old. By the time he had finished in the army, he was shaving twice a day to avoid getting disciplined.
It was a habit he tended to keep, except for the Fourth of July.
“What are they doing?” Juliet asked.
“Hm?” Jonathan said.
“The girls,” his wife said, pointing towards the end of the yard.
Jonathan followed the line of her finger and saw Kathryn and Denise. They stood at the edge of the property, where brambles and undergrowth spilled out from the tree line. The girls were still, the sparklers had gone out and were held loosely in their hands.
It seemed as if the girls were listening to something, so Jonathan tilted his head slightly and strained to hear whatever they did.
Nothing.
Not even any birds or animals.
From the backyards of the few other houses on the street, Jonathan could hear laughter and conversations, a record player and at least two transistor radios tuned into the Nashua station.
The girls weren’t paying any mind to those noises.
They were focused only on the forest beyond.
Juliet stood up, her body stiff and a worried expression on her face.
“Girls,” she said, her tone sharp.
Neither Kathryn nor Denise paid her any attention.
“Kathryn,” Juliet snapped.
Again there was no reaction.
“Kathryn!” Juliet barked.
Both Kathryn and Denise jumped, hastening to turn around and face Juliet.
“Do you hear him?” Kathryn asked excitedly as she and Denise hurried back to stand before them.
“Who?” Jonathan asked, straightening up in his seat. “Is there someone out there?”
Kathryn nodded while Denise said, “A little boy.”
“What?” Jonathan asked even as he got out of the chair. His eyes swept the tree line, but he couldn’t see anything that didn’t belong there. No bright colors or human flesh. No sign that a boy was in the woods.
Jonathan turned and looked at the girls. There was no falsehood in their faces, no attempt to deceive.
“What did he look like?” Jonathan asked.
“He’s right there,” Kathryn replied, turning back to the woods and lifting her arm. Then she dropped it. Her next words were a mixture of confusion and concern, “But where did he go?”
“Stay here,” Jonathan said.
He left the girls with Juliet and moved forward towards the place they had stood. In his hand, he still held his beer. Long strides carried him to the tree line, and he walked several steps through the brambles, pushing himself in.
The dim world of the forest wrapped around him. It was silent. No insects. No birds. No animals. Even the sounds of the celebrations were muted.
The forest felt wrong as if someone had built a scene and left out some key part of it. A puzzle Jonathan had no desire to solve.
He didn’t doubt the girls had seen someone. Probably a relative of a neighbor. A kid looking to get a laugh out of a couple of little girls.
Still, the hair on his arms stood up, as did the hackles on his neck. The can of beer grew colder in his hand, and he understood there was something watching him. He didn’t know if it was a person or some sort of animal, but regardless as to what it was, it made him uncomfortable.
He took a deep breath and scanned the woods from left to right, and then back again.
Nothing stuck out.
Everything seemed in its place.
With an uncomfortable tremor in his hands, Jonathan turned away from the woods and returned to his seat. The girls and Juliet looked at him.
“Stay away from the woods,” Jonathan said, his tone harsh to hide the fear he felt. “There’s something wrong about it.”
“It doesn’t feel wrong,” Kathryn said, looking back at the trees. “It feels like it's right.”
Jonathan shook his head, reiterated what he had said, and dropped into his chair. He stared into the forest and wondered what terrible presence lurked in the darkness.
Jonathan Bonus Scene Chapter 9: Denise Went for a Walk, July 7th, 1976
Someone was leaning on the doorbell.
And hammering on the door itself.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Jonathan grumbled as he sat up, rubbing the last remnants of sleep out of his eyes.
Juliet rolled over beside him, her face puffy with sleep and her eyes still closed.
“Is the doorbell broken?” she asked. Then her eyes widened as she registered the sound of someone knocking on the door.
“Jonathan?” Juliet asked in a hushed tone. “What’s going on?”
He shook his head as an answer and climbed out of bed. From the dresser drawer, he removed snub-nosed .38 pistol, paused at the door of his bedroom, and took down a handful of rounds from behind a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Jonathan loaded the pistol as he made his way down the hallway, pausing to glance into Kathryn’s room. Their daughter was asleep, mouth open and a delicate snore escaping into the morning air.
He went down the stairs, reached the front door, and stepped to the left of it. Jonathan cocked the pistol kept down at his side and called out, “Who is it?!”
“Jonathan, it’s Bart!” a man said. “For the love of God, open the door!”
Jonathan eased the pistol’s hammer back into place, threw back the deadbolt and the chain, and tugged the front door open.
Bart Sheffield, Denise’s father, stood on his porch, a frantic look on his face. His long brown hair was a mess, hanging in front of his eyes. The man wore only a white shirt, which was untucked around a pair of battered jeans that were splashed with gray paint.
In a detached way, Jonathan remembered the summer before when he had helped Bart to put a fresh coat of gray paint on the man’s house.
“Have you seen her?” Bart demanded, his eyes wild.
“Seen who, Bart?” Jonathan asked, stepping aside to let the man in.
Bart, who had a tendency to drink a little more than was good for him, smelled only of sweat and desperation as he passed by.
“Denise,” Bart said, his daughter’s name rushing out of his mouth. “Have you seen her?”
The last vestiges of sleep were driven from Jonathan’s mind. He glanced over to the mantle clock, saw it was only a few minutes past six and said, “Bart, why would she be here?”
“Grace and I had a fight last night,” Bart said. “Bad one. She told me she was going to leave, I told her to go. It went on like that for a while. We ended up getting drunk. Fought a little more. Made up. I went to check on Denise this morning, she’d been pretty upset. Closed the door on us and everything.”
Bart shuddered and dropped into Jonathan’s Lazy-Boy. “She wasn’t in her room.”
“She’s missing?” Jonathan snapped. “Denise is missing?”
Bart nodded.
“Oh, hell,” Jonathan spat. “Did you call the police?”
“Grace did. They’re on their way,” Bart answered. “but I thought I’d come here. She usually comes here when she’s upset. Least that’s what she told her grandma.”
Juliet came down the stairs, one arm around Kathryn’s thin shoulders. While Kathryn still looked half-asleep, Juliet’s brown ey
es were wide with apprehension.
“Kathryn,” Jonathan said. “Did you happen to talk with Denise yesterday?”
Kathryn yawned and nodded.
“What did she say?” Bart pleaded.
“She was going to see the boy,” Kathryn said, leaning against Juliet. “He told us he would wait, but Denise wouldn’t wait for me.”
“What boy?” Jonathan asked.
“The one in the forest,” Kathryn replied, “the one we saw on the fourth of July.”
Jonathan’s flesh crawled at the unpleasant memory of the woods.
“What is she talking about?” Bart asked, looking at Jonathan.
“I’m not sure,” Jonathan answered. “Juliet, could you put some coffee on for us please.”
“Sure,” his wife said, nodding. She led Kathryn to the couch and then went into the kitchen. Jonathan sat beside his daughter.
“I didn’t see anyone there,” Jonathan said in a gentle tone. “Not a single person.”
“I know,” Kathryn said, yawning. “He doesn’t want to be seen. Not yet.”
The last statement was made with a smile and a cheerful air, and Jonathan hated it.
“Have you seen him around here before?” Bart demanded, trying to get up from the chair and failing. He dropped back into it, exhausted. “Have you seen him in town?”
Kathryn shook her head. “No. But he was just a regular boy. He said he didn’t have anyone to play with and that made us sad.”
“Coffee’s on,” Juliet said, coming into the room and sitting on the opposite side of Kathryn.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to take Bart out back. I want to see if we can tell where, or if Denise went into the woods.”
Juliet nodded, pulling Kathryn close to her.
Jonathan put his pistol down on the table and said, “Come on, Bart. Let’s take a look.”