What Goes Around

by Rollins, Jack

  Even above the sound of the rain, Ray heard the corpse rolling about in the boot of the car. His mouth tasted of metal and nervous tension. He didn’t risk moving his trembling hands from the steering wheel, in case he lost control of the car and it veered into the ditch at the roadside. Thin sticks and bare hedgerows scraped at the rain-pelted windows. In the dimming light of dusk the windscreen wipers worked at their limit to keep up with the downpour.

  In the passenger seat Huntoon watched the road ahead and sipped from a bottle of supermarket brand vodka. He hadn’t said a word since they’d passed the last ramshackle village. Ray tried to think of something he’d done to displease the older man, but he couldn’t remember. His throat tightened as he tried to think of something to say, so he decided to leave it and concentrate on the way ahead.

  The country roads were neglected and twisted into serpentine forms – black tarmac and wet gravel, potholes and weeds, winding through silent villages seemingly lost in time. Flanked by fields and meadows. Tall trees grasping for the starless sky. Ray couldn’t wait to get back to the city, to solid concrete and familiar streets, fast food and tower blocks.

  All this effort to dispose of a police informant.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you?” Huntoon said.

  “What?” Ray asked.

  “You’re scared. You’re nervous.”

  “Is it obvious?”

  “To anyone with eyes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  Ray cleared his throat. “I think so.”

  “Look like you’re about to shit your pants.”

  Ray wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip. “This is my first time dumping a body.”

  A half-smile played across Huntoon’s mouth, revealing the gold tooth where his lateral incisor should have been. “I know. That’s why I’m here. Mr Cobb wanted to make sure you did the job properly.”

  “I’ll do the job properly.”

  “I hope so. That prick in the boot has to stay hidden, because if he’s ever found it’ll lead straight back to Mr Cobb. And if that happens, he’ll have our fucking heads on sticks.”

  “I won’t let Mr Cobb down,” Ray said.

  “You won’t while I’m around.”

  After a moment of silence Ray asked, “How many times have you dumped a body for Cobb?”

  “Mr Cobb.”

  “Mr Cobb, I mean, of course.”

  “Many times.”

  Ray squinted at the rain. “You’re from around here, aren’t you?”

  Huntoon sighed. “Born and raised. When I first moved to the city I was mocked all the time for my accent.”

  “You haven’t got an accent.”

  “Not anymore. I lost it after a few years in the city. And, anyway, the last man who took the piss out of my accent ended up with a butter knife sticking out of his eye.”

  Ray turned the wheel as the road curved to one side. He switched the radio on, but there was only the hiss of static. “Can I put a CD on?”

  Huntoon lowered the vodka from his lips. “No. The last one you put on was shite.”

  “Dr Dre?”

  “You think you’re from South Central? Compton?”

  “I like it.”

  “Shite. Absolute shite.”

  “Okay.”

  “Turn the radio off,” Huntoon said. “We’re nearly there.”

  ***

  A few miles on they found a place to stop, and Ray pulled over to the side of the road under the dripping bough of a tall oak tree. When Ray turned the headlights off, such was the darkness around the car that his breath stuck in his throat.

  Huntoon, ape-like and slouching, took one last swig from the vodka bottle.

  Ray climbed out of the car and switched on the torch he’d taken from his jacket pocket. He pulled his hood over his head and grimaced up at the drizzle. Rainwater dripped from the leaves and branches of the great oak, pattering on the road like a hundred tapping fingers bidding him welcome.

  Huntoon opened his door and stepped outside. He swept his torchlight over the roadside hedgerows and shadowy thickets, then down both directions of the road.

  The black trees sighed with the passage of the winter wind.

  “It’s fucking freezing,” Ray said, shivering as he glanced around. “I hate the rain.”

  Huntoon pointed the torch at him, and he flinched from the light. “Stop moaning. Get on with it.”

  “Sorry. I was only saying.”

  “Well, don’t. We’ve got a job to do. Sooner we get it done, sooner we can fuck off out of here.”

  Ray took out his cigarette lighter and pack of Marlboros.

  “What are you doing?” Huntoon said.

  “I thought I might have a smoke while we shift him.”

  “You can wait until we’ve finished.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  They walked to the rear of the car, opened the boot, and lowered their torches to the corpse wrapped in blue tarpaulin and bound with thin rope. He was a small man but Ray wasn’t looking forward to carrying him across the field.

  “We should have chopped him up.”

  “Be my guest,” said Huntoon. “There’s a hacksaw somewhere in the boot. If you’re up to it, of course.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Thought so. Let’s get this done.”

  ***

  The starless sky was the only witness to their passage through the metal gate into the sodden field. They struggled with the weight of the corpse. Ray carried two spades in a bag over his shoulder. His arms were aching and he had to keep blinking the rain from his eyes.

  Huntoon moved in silence, glancing around them. Ray couldn’t see the boundaries of the field, and the sky was only a shade lighter. The rain, which had worsened since they’d left the road, only helped to obscure their surroundings.

  “How much farther to the woods?” Sweat beaded at the nape of Ray’s neck and trickled down his back. “I can’t see anything out here.”

  Huntoon spat. “Nearly there.”

  “Okay.”

  After what seemed like hours spent traversing the field, the woods loomed ahead. The trees were like a wall that had recently emerged from the ground to meet the approaching men.

  Ray wheezed a sour breath through gritted teeth. “How far will we have to go into the woods?”

  “Will you stop asking questions?”

  “You just asked a question.”

  “Don’t get clever, boy, or you’ll end up in the same hole as this poor bastard.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We won’t have to go too far.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Stop saying sorry.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot, Ray.”

  ***

  They moved through and below the trees, stepping lightly. Shadows rose and fell from their torchlights, then retreated into the deeper dark of the woods. Rain slipped through the skeletal canopy. Water dripped from branches and trickled down gnarled trunks.

  “Did you remember the spades?” said Huntoon.

  Ray nodded, then realised that Huntoon couldn’t see him in the dark. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Because if you forgot, I’d make you go back to get them.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know anything, boy.”

  “Sorry.”

  ***

  They found a patch of ground between some trees and set the body down. Ray pressed one hand to his back and winced.

  Huntoon directed his torch about and prodded the damp earth with his boot. “This will do. Seems mostly clear of tree roots. Should be able to dig fairly deep enough to keep animals away.”

  Ray’s legs ached and heat prickled the backs of his thighs. His throat was dry and scratchy like he was coming down with an infection. When he realised he’d forgotten his bottle of water he turned his face to the falling rain an
d opened his mouth. Huntoon watched him and shook his head. Once Ray was done gulping at raindrops, Huntoon threw him a spade, and then they set to work on the ground, backs bent towards the treetops and the pitch black beyond.

  ***

  It took well over an hour to dig the grave. They lowered the corpse into the earth then refilled the hole with the loose dirt and patted down the topsoil. They covered the ground with leaves and fallen branches. When it was done they stood in the rain and looked down at the grave beneath the woodland detritus.

  “Should we say some words?” Ray asked. “I know he was an informant, but we still knew him.”

  Huntoon spat and looked as if Ray had suggested a naked dance about the trees. “Don’t be so soft. He got what he deserved. We all get what we deserve.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Huntoon hefted his spade and laid it on his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. Fucking heartburn’s giving me gyp, and I left my pills back in the car.”

  Ray nodded, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Okay.”

  ***

  The men started back through the woods. Ray tried to make conversation but Huntoon responded with grunted answers or just ignored him completely. Eventually he gave up and just kept his attention to where he placed his feet upon the sodden woodland floor.

  They pressed on in silence, back the way they had travelled into the woods, but Ray felt a cold prickle of unease and anxiety in his chest. He found himself glancing about at the low sounds drifting from between the trees – the rustle of movement from the small mammals that scurried in the night. Something brushed through the treetops above him. When he looked to his right he thought he saw the silvery gleam of fox eyes from within a briar patch.

  “Are we going the right way?” Ray asked.

  “What do you mean, boy?”

  “We should be out of the woods by now. Fuck, we should be back at the car by now.”

  Huntoon halted and wiped his brow. Ray stopped beside him. In the pale light Huntoon’s face was severe and defined by thin shadows. And from his expression, Ray could tell he’d been thinking the same. Then Huntoon looked around into the surrounding trees stretching away from them, past the rain and the constant dripping.

  “The woods can play tricks on you. Nothing more than that. We’ll soon break through the trees.”

  Ray nodded, but his sudden feeling that they were being followed was difficult to ignore.

  As they moved on, Huntoon murmured words under his breath.

  Ray thought he’d said: “These are old, old woods.”

  ***

  Farther on, no more than a hundred yards through the trees, their torchlights found a strange symbol carved into the wide trunk of an oak.

  “What is it?” said Ray.

  Huntoon didn’t answer as he stepped towards the tree. Ray stood beside him. The symbol was a vertical crescent, like a sliver of the Moon. Two narrow lines ran through the crescent at a forty-five degree angle. Ray noticed the lines looked like they’d been scored by sharp claws, but he chose not to speak of it.

  Huntoon reached out and ran his fingers over the symbol, then drew them away, as if suddenly aware of his actions. Then he looked to the ground, lost in thought, his face caught in a frown that made him appear older than even his advanced years.

  “Do you know what it is?” said Ray.

  Huntoon looked up and regarded him. His mouth was partly open. He blinked. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Do you recognise it?”

  “We need to get out of the woods.”

  ***

  They went on. The rain didn’t stop or lessen. Shadows moved in Ray’s peripheral vision. Huntoon scanned ahead and to their sides, as if waiting for something to appear.

  They found the torn remnants of blue tarpaulin and broken rope on the ground. Dark bloodstains on the plastic. Left directly in their path, like an offering for them to stumble across.

  They froze and stared down at the shredded remains.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Ray said.

  Huntoon exhaled. “I think so.”

  “Someone dug the body up and removed the rope and tarpaulin, then left them here. But where’s the body?”

  Huntoon toed the tarpaulin, then stepped away like it was something distasteful. He looked at Ray. “I think we’re in trouble.”

  Ray shivered, and not from the cold. “Who did this?” He noticed the pistol in Huntoon’s hand. “Where did that come from?”

  “I’ve had it all along. You can’t be too careful. Plenty of psycho farmers out here.”

  “You think a farmer did this?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “That symbol we found – I recognised it. I wasn’t sure at first, but then I remembered some old stories my grandfather told me when I was a boy. I never thought they were true. Always assumed them to be myths and folk tales. All that bullshit. Now I’m not so sure. I felt we were being watched as soon as we entered the woods.”

  Ray almost laughed. “Are you talking about goblins and ghosts, for fuck’s sake?”

  Huntoon shook his head. He opened his mouth and began to talk, but was interrupted by a wailing scream from deep in the woods behind them. They turned to look back into the trees from which they’d travelled. Huntoon raised his pistol. A sound of mourning or rage followed the wail. It seemed neither human nor animal. Something Ray had never heard before, and didn’t want to ever again.

  “We’ve angered her,” said Huntoon. “It was a mistake to bury the body in these woods.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Ray, staring into the dark.

  “You’re not supposed to understand, boy. You’re not from around here. You never heard the stories.”

  Ray’s voice was boyish and weak in the rain. “The stories your grandfather told you? What are you talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Huntoon turned to him. “We’re supposed to run, boy.”

  ***

  And they ran and stumbled, kicking through bracken and the carpet of stinking mulch and moss. The lowest branches of trees impeded and stabbed at them; it made Ray think of hands with sharp fingernails.

  He dropped one of the spades and did not go back for it.

  Their torchlights flashed past gnarled trunks and shadowy nooks between the trees. In his panic he thought he saw faces emerge from the patches of darkness and then retreat with gleeful light in their eyes. He spat each breath through a mouth filling with bile-sour saliva. He was certain he could hear something behind them. Something closing in, moving quicker than was possible through the scratching thickets. Something that walked forever in the woods.

  Huntoon stumbled and fell against a tree. He grunted, cried out. Ray went to him and held him up. Huntoon grimaced, clutching his chest, breathing through gritted teeth. His eyelids fluttered.

  “You okay?” Ray said, crouching beside him.

  “Need my pills.”

  “We’ll get them. Come on.”

  Huntoon looked up, and then his eyes fell on something past Ray’s shoulder. His mouth fell open. He paled. Ray didn’t want to turn around, but he did, and he saw what had reduced Huntoon, a man who’d killed men in cold blood, to frightened silence.

  The pale form of a woman coalesced from between the trees. She looked too old to be out on such a night. Her crooked shoulders bent to the right, head cocked to the same side. A skeletal thing from the heart of the woods, clad in what seemed to be a tattered old gown made from stained cloth. Her arms and legs were bare and spindly, with the suggestion of brittleness about them. Her hair fell in wispy strands about her gaunt face, over her gold-yellow eyes and the wrinkled cartilage of her nose and her gnashing black-gummed mouth.

  Ray realised she was almost seven feet tall. He couldn’t speak, and didn’t try to, in case it became a scream.

  “It’s her,” Huntoon whispered between s
hallow breaths. His hand pawed at his chest. “Oh God, it’s her.”

  The old woman’s face held such an expression of rage that Ray had to look away for fear of losing his wits. And when he found his nerve to look again, she was already loping towards them with her eyes blazing and her long limbs splayed like some great gangling insect. Then Ray did scream, and fell back against the tree with Huntoon gasping beside him.

  Huntoon raised his pistol and fired three times at the woman, and when the report of the gunshots had faded to a ringing silence, she had vanished. But Ray heard something rushing away through the treetops. He put one hand to his mouth and bit down on his knuckles.

  ***

  Later, after traipsing in silence for over an hour through the endless woods, they found shelter under the thick bough of an old oak. The rain seemed to never stop. They squatted and huddled together like fugitives. Huntoon held the pistol close. His mouth was opening with little breaths. Ray kept watch with the remaining spade and his torch. Adrenaline broiled in his limbs and empty stomach. He felt sick.

  “Do you know what that thing was?” said Ray. “Are you going to tell me?”

  Huntoon exhaled and looked down at the ground. Ray had never seen the man so scared and morose. “Do you really want to know, boy?”

  “I think it’s for the best.”

  “For the best?”

  “Yes.”

  “All that matters is we’re going to die out here.”

  “Then I want to know the name of the thing that’s going to kill me.”

  Huntoon rested the back of his head against the tree. “Wretched Annie. That’s been her name for centuries, perhaps more.”

  “Wretched Annie? Who the fuck is she? What is she?”

  “Something out of ancient folk tales and myths. A demon from pre-Christian times.”

  “Pagan times,” said Ray.

  Huntoon nodded. “Some sort of spirit; was said to haunt the woods in this area of the country. She would snatch anyone passing through the woods, and they’d never be seen again. No one knew how the story began. It was claimed she was some kind of elemental creature or some shite like that. She had powers, to make people become lost in the woods, to make the woods seem endless. And then she would snatch her prey and take them away to her nest.”