Stoneskin's Revenge

by Tom Deitz

What wasn’t right were the stones. Coastal south Georgia was flat, Calvin knew; had been underwater until fairly recently, thus the predominantly sandy soil. To hit rock worthy of the name you had to dig deep, and even then it was likely to be limestone.

  Not handsome sandstone monoliths like those that reared up from the sandbar before him, gold-glimmering in the moonlight—impressive, yet somehow sinister as well, for each was taller than he was, and most were wider than his arms could span.

  No way stones like these could be natural.

  Indians, then? He tried to recall all he knew about aboriginal Indian stonework. He didn’t think the native Yu-chi had worked stone, and was pretty sure they wouldn’t have lugged boulders like these around without a very good reason. Maybe it was the folks who had built Rock Eagle away to the north, or the ones who’d piled the pseudo-forts on Fort Mountain.

  Or perhaps it was none of these things—for Calvin could not put from his mind what he had sensed as he followed the thrumming: that something was playing with the forces of the earth itself. Maybe that was it; maybe something had raised these stones, dragged them up from the center of the world—or perhaps simply fused them together out of the abundant sand. The color was the same, in fact.

  But who or what?

  Was this what the omens had pointed to? If so, what did it portend? Did it mean anything at all?

  Or was he simply being paranoid again?

  The trouble with magic was that once you knew it worked, you never quite trusted anything you saw afterward, especially if it was in any way out of the ordinary. But Calvin had also seen enough of hard-core mundane reality to know that plenty of remarkable things had perfectly natural explanations.

  So, he supposed, the first thing to do was check out the stones. With that in mind, he slipped around the first one—and got a shock so strong that a low cry escaped him before he could suppress it.

  The rocks constituted an irregular half-ring where they butted up against the stream. But to Calvin’s left was a series of lower shelves, and on the bottommost lay the body of a small blond girl. She was naked, Calvin saw as he drew nearer, lying on her back as if in repose. Maybe about nine or ten—certainly younger than Brock, who claimed thirteen and looked eleven. Her face was pretty, her soft, smooth skin rendered smoother yet by the moonlight that caressed it and hid the pallor Calvin knew was there without bothering to check—perhaps because his senses were already so attuned to the night he could have heard the sound of her breathing had there been any. But the tiny chest did not rise and fall; the lips did not stir; the eyes did not twitch beneath their translucent lids.

  The child was dead—but she had died in peace, that much he could tell by her expression. Yet it had not been natural causes, that much was equally clear. Calvin bent closer, scarcely daring to breathe lest he shatter the illusion—though his heart knew that was the thing he wished would happen, for no child as lovely as this should be dead. Closer, and he stood directly over her, trying very hard to fight the tears he felt welling up in his eyes, to banish the memories of his father the image before him suddenly evoked.

  Logic advised that he get the hell out of there—an Indian boy caught looking at a naked dead white child in the middle of the night was a situation custom-made for trouble. But there was something about this night, this place; something about its almost mystical stillness that made him linger a moment longer.

  Soundlessly, Calvin knelt beside the child, and when he did, he noticed what she held in her nearer hand. It was a doll—a sort of articulated manikin—completely made of artfully jointed pebbles. In fact, when Calvin turned so the moonlight was full upon it, he could see that—though every form was made of unshaped rock—they were joined to each other in some way he could not make out so that they could move and twist like a natural body. There was something a little too strange about that, too. It smacked—there was no other word for it—of magic.

  But magic or no, Calvin had to get word to the authorities, never mind what they might do to him. There were a thousand reasons to do so, most having to do with simple ethics, with doing “the right thing,” and trusting to the courts to acquit him of any improper allegations. And since he was on a Vision Quest, doing the Right Thing was very important. Trouble was, they were looking for him back in town, very likely had a murder warrant out on him, and if they had any sense really would have bloodhounds on his trail before long.

  And now he, the fox, had to chase down the hounds! Because if there was one thing he could not do, it was to leave this poor child here for others to find Lord-knew-when.

  He thought briefly of waking Brock and Robyn and dispatching them to phone in an anonymous tip, but quickly brushed that notion aside. They were in almost as much trouble as he was; no way he’d ask them to further risk themselves in his behalf.

  But if something had killed this little girl, most especially if it was something supernatural, no way was he gonna leave the runaways unprotected. That, at least, he could do something about.

  “A-wooo-ooooo-oooooo!”

  Calvin almost jumped out of his skin, and whirled around just in time to see a large black-and-tan ’coon hound lope into the clearing. It paused when it saw him, staring soulfully at him with confused brown eyes that questioned his presence there.

  “Easy, boy,” Calvin whispered, and began backing away, edging toward the encircling woods opposite the way the hound had entered. Evidently the monoliths had deadened sound somewhat, for now he was almost clear of them, he could make out the cacophony of the hunt at full cry—and growing closer by the instant. He hesitated, torn between the very reasonable desire to get the hell away from there, and curiosity. For the hound had lost all interest in him, was nosing around the little girl’s body, yet keeping a certain distance, as if it mistrusted what it smelled. If it stayed there, Calvin now had every good reason to believe, the hunt would proceed no further.

  As if in answer, the hound set back its head and bayed. The tone and cadence were different than earlier, though, and Calvin suspected the dog’s owner would know what it implied.

  Well, he supposed, if push came to shove, he could always change skin again. And with that in mind, Calvin slid back into the cover of the forest—but not so far he could not see or hear what went on inside the ominous stone circle.

  He did not have long to wait, because the hound’s belling was quickly joined by others, and an instant later, the sandbar was awash with canine bodies—tails wagging, pendulous ears flopping every which way. Most were black-and-tans, but there were a few redbones and blue-ticks as well, and—sure enough—a single treeing walker.

  An instant later, two men followed. One was tall and slim and red-headed, maybe in his middle thirties; the other shorter, blockier, and younger, yet somehow the more elegant of the two. Both wore jeans, flannel shirts, and purposeful-looking boots, and both had impressive battery packs slung around their waists, which connected to equally heavy-duty flashlights.

  If he’d had any doubts before, the men’s appearance dispelled them. They were ’coon hunters without a doubt—probably out for a practice run to keep their hounds in tune.

  “Jesus Christ!” the shorter man cried abruptly, as his beam raked across the little girl’s corpse. Then, “Fuck, Rob! That’s a goddamn body!”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” the taller man echoed, pushing past his companion to stare down at the form on the stone. Then, “Oh, shit, Larry! Why, this is…this is my woman’s girl: this is poor little Allison Scott!”

  The shorter man frowned and waded through hounds so he could peer over his companion’s shoulder. “You’re shittin’ me!”

  The taller man stood, towering above the other, his face almost blank with shock. “But…but that just can’t be, Larry!” he whispered, sounding suddenly much younger than he had a moment ago. “I…well, I was over at th’ station right ’fore we came out here, and Liza-Bet called in and reported her missin’—took the call myself. But then Allison turned up right in the middle
of everything, so they closed the case before it was even really opened. Liza-Bet figgered she’d just got lost in the woods.”

  “Yeah,” Larry breathed. “I ’member you tellin’ me ’bout that. You sure that’s her?” he added.

  The red-head nodded. “I saw her today at lunch over at Liza-Bet’s. Told her how good she was. I…”

  Larry laid an arm around his shoulders and drew him back. “That’s okay, Rob. You don’t have to talk ’bout it now. I reckon you know what we’ve gotta do.”

  “Yeah,” Rob replied heavily. “Guess I’d better give the sheriff a call.”

  “I’ll do ’er if you want me to,” Larry told him. “I’ll stay here and wait, if you want. You can stick the dogs in the pickup and then I suspect you’ll be wantin’ to hightail it to Liza-Bet’s. Figger she’d rather hear it from you as anybody.”

  “I ’spect so,” Rob acknowledged heavily, in somewhat better control of himself than heretofore. He reached for the walkie-talkie that hung at his waist, unhooded it, and stared at it stupidly but did not turn it on.

  Meanwhile Larry was sweeping the sand with the beam of his flashlight, moving it back and forth with great precision and following the large, bright circle with equal intensity. Most of what it showed was dogs milling around and getting fidgety (though they hadn’t approached the body, which he thought curious), but then…

  “Aha!” he cried, and knelt down right by Allison’s corpse. “Tracks,” he continued, looking up at Rob. “Middle-sized male in tennis shoes, unless I miss my guess. You know anybody like that?”

  “Yeah,” Rob sighed, rising once more and switching on the walkie-talkie, “’Cordin’ to what I heard Wilson goin’ on about back in town, I’ve got one idea already; so I guess I’d better get the wheels to turnin’.”

  “Guess you had,” Larry agreed. And with that Robert Richards sent the bad news out of the forest and into Whidden.

  Chapter XII: “Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!”

  (northeast of Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 19—near 1 A.M.)

  There was one thing he could always count on when he went camping, Don Scott reflected with a yawn: sooner or later he was going to have to get up at least once in the night to pee. It happened every time, and usually at the most inconvenient times, like when he was crammed between two buddies, or was the one closest to the wall, or when he was in the top bunk, or when it was raining, or—sometimes—just when he was in a particularly enticing dream. That had been what he’d been aroused from this time, and aroused was a pretty good word, too; ’cause he’d been dreaming about Janie Morris, who was a year ahead of him in school, but who’d winked at him in town yesterday morning. Lord, it gave him a hard-on just thinking about it, and that wasn’t what he needed to be thinking about at all when his bladder was crying out for relief.

  Oh well, he decided philosophically, glancing down at Michael snoring away beside him; ole Mike’s log-sawing would have woken him up sooner or later anyway. Or the skeeters, he added to himself, as he paused in the process of sliding his legs out of the bag to slap a couple he could feel sampling his arms and neck.

  Or, he realized suddenly, very possibly the humming in the ground. It was a wonder Mike couldn’t feel it, ’cause he sure as heck could. Curious, too: it was like an endless train running at a great distance, like far-off thunder in the earth. Or like drumming. It crept up through his body, thrummed into his bones.

  And inevitably reached his over-stressed bladder.

  “Shit,” he muttered under his breath and slid the rest of the way out of the bag, not caring now if he woke Mike up or not, and thinking rather strongly that if the—whatever it was—was still going on when he got back from his pit stop, he’d wake the SOB up and see what he thought about it.

  The bag fabric hiss-buzzed against itself as he rose beneath the scanty shelter of the lean-to he and Mike had lashed together the previous summer. Another yawn, another glance at Mike, and Don padded skivvies-clad into the warm night.

  He hesitated at the foot of his bag to check out the river: a glittering ribbon of black below the bank to the right. A pair of laurel oaks backed the lean-to, and to the left and ahead were miles of woods: hardwood here, but a little farther out—beyond the single strand of barbed wire he’d aloofly ignored—they gave over to one of Union Camp’s endless loblolly pine plantations.

  But it was night, and it was the woods, and him and Mike were out in it, and it was great. He could feel the warm wind against his bare chest and shoulders as he trotted along searching for a place where the bank sort of overhung the creek and he could whiz into the water unimpeded. The sand was soft underfoot, too—soft as flour. But for some reason that troubled him—maybe because he could still feel that weird-ass thrumming, and he didn’t think you should be able to feel that kinda thing through something as soft and unstable as sand.

  It took him a little longer than he expected to find the place he wanted—maybe fifty yards up from the camp. A tree crooked over the river there, its trunk curving out and then up again. He balanced there precariously, one foot on land and one on the knobby bark, flopped Rambo Jr. out, and let fly, hearing the distant tinkling splash—and the startled croak of a suddenly baptized bullfrog.

  Finally relieved, Don returned to more stable footing and headed back to camp. He was almost within sight of it when he heard something—someone singing. Simultaneously he caught a glimpse of something white winking ghostlike through the already disquieting streamers of Spanish moss. He froze in place, as every haint tale he’d ever heard (and he’d heard plenty, ’cause they were a sort of specialty of his) came sneaking back to him, so that all in a single sharp breath the night woods were transformed into something sinister.

  The singing was getting steadily louder, too; and pretty soon Don could hear words, though they didn’t make any sense:

  Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!

  Just that same nonsense phrase over and over. But the voice gave him the willies worse than ever ’cause it sounded a whole lot like Allison’s voice, and she’d given him the willies once that day already. Her eyes had been the worst, ’cause they hadn’t looked like Allison’s eyes at all. Or rather, they’d looked like Allison’s eyes rendered into cold, dead stone. And the way she’d stared at him…jeeze! Like she’d wanted to eat him or something.

  If Mike hadn’t been there, if they hadn’t already done a million things to prepare for their trip, if Mike had been even halfway likely to have listened to him when he said something was wrong with Allison and maybe he ought to stick around home for a while, he would have stayed home, just to keep an eye out. But this trip meant a lot to Mike, and they hadn’t been out all night in a while, and…well, it really had seemed silly when he thought about it. “Something’s wrong with my sister? Yeah, sure!”

  It did not sound at all silly now.

  Don could not have said what kept him rooted to that spot. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was some other hand guiding him (he felt that way sometimes—like somebody was watchin’ out for him, making him lucky and all.) Whatever its source, he stayed where he was, while the singing got louder and closer. Don noted absently that the thrumming had stopped, but that didn’t make much difference now, not when his sister was out roaming through the night like a crazy woman.

  Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!

  For when the half-seen figure finally pushed through a particularly thick beard of moss and came full into the clearing, Don had no doubt whatever that it was Allison.

  He also had no doubt that there was something wrong with her. Common sense—and a good chunk of emotion—said what he ought to do was run out to her and hug her and ask her what in the world she was doing out there a mile from home in just her nightie. But when your sister stared at you like she had earlier, and then showed up singing strange songs, it might be wise to watch her for a minute first.

  Thus torn, Don swallowed and squatted down in place, hoping against hope that the tree he was crouched behind
would be sufficient cover.

  He could hear the song clearly now, and this time there was no doubt: it was Allison singing, and it was not English. But even as he strained his ears, the song slowly shifted, and then it was English, and the words sure enough kept Don frozen in his tracks:

  Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

  Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

  Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

  And with that last strange word echoing around the clearing, the small blond figure removed its left hand from where it had been hidden in a fold of nightgown and flourished it on high.

  And Don saw that which came within an ace of making him scream his lungs out. For his sister—no, it couldn’t be; better say that thing—had an index finger that was at least twelve inches long, on which glittered a nail that looked far too much like the chipped and flaked head of a stone spear.

  And she was walking right toward Mike, who slept all unaware.

  “No!” Don tried to scream, but only then discovered that he could not move. No, he could move, but so slowly it was like pulling his way through hardening concrete. He could breathe, could feel his heart pumping extra as it tried to supply the blood desperate muscles needed. But something was interrupting.

  It was, Don realized dully, that damned song. For as he watched Allison calmly walking toward his buddy, she kept singing, and every time she came to that set of non-words, Su sa sai! the air gave a little buzz, and the ground gave a little thrum, and together they just sort of slipped up into his nerves and held him cold.

  He could only watch, then; watch in horror as Allison skipped to within a foot of Michael Chadwick’s head, knelt beside him, dragged the flap of the sleeping bag aside—and with obvious relish, plunged that awful finger into his naked right side.

  And Don could do nothing but watch: could not flinch, could not gag, could not scream. He could not even cry much, though he felt his eyes burning. That was Michael over there, lying on his back with his left arm resting on his flat, tan belly, and the other curled languorously above his head, as if he were offering his side to that monster. His face, though, was the worst, for it did not change, kept that smile of peace that Don loved—and would have died to keep Mike from knowing he loved; that smile Mike wore only when he was sleeping, that Don saw only when he awoke beside Mike in the night and watched him and wished he really was his brother.