by Hixon, Wayne
“But it’ll do the trick, right?”
“That depends on what we’re dealing with, I guess.”
“For the sake of safety, let’s pretend it’ll do the trick.”
“Okay, it’ll do the trick.”
“And let’s pretend it’s a cool weapon.”
“Okay, it’s a cool weapon,” Rachel said.
“The coolest,” Rain said.
Jacob led the way down the hill. A nearly palpable sense of dread enclosed him as they reached closer to the bottom, where the foul house should sit. Jacob knew it was them, working whatever power it was they had. The darkness seemed to increase the farther down they went. It grew colder.
“Where do you think this ghost thing would have been going?” Rain asked.
“Well, town is that way,” Rachel pointed to her right, toward the woods rising up the smaller hill there. “Through the reserve.”
They universally turned in that direction.
“I’m starting to get a really bad feeling,” Rachel said.
“Yeah,” Jacob said.
“Yeah,” Rain said.
“Like the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan,” Jacob said.
“Exactly,” Rachel said.
“Good thing I have this tire iron,” Jacob said, and then added, “The coolest weapon in the world.”
They moved slowly, the ground beneath their feet feeling almost marshy. Reaching the edge of the woods, they stood still, peering into the darkness. In the woods, it was already dark, it was already nighttime. Not one of them saw what was in the woods. The two wolves looked at the three humans and growled lowly, nearly inaudibly. Not one of the three of them heard this, but goosebumps pimpled each of them, chills shivering down their spines. And each of them had a flickering moment where they thought maybe they shouldn’t be here, maybe here was much much more dangerous than they had at first suspected.
Twenty-five
Bones knew it wasn’t all the way dark yet but he didn’t think he could stay buried underground any longer. Boredom and restlessness begged him to move. Raising his arms from the damp soil, he cleared the dirt away from his face, standing up, smelling it in his nose. It was odd that he could smell everything so strongly without breathing. He didn’t need to breathe now. It was like the scents just seeped in through his pores.
These new found senses amazed him. He knew these woods were full of spirits like him. Some of the spirits inhabited animals. Some of them inhabited trees. Some of them moved freely, only to be seen by certain people, and how many people would see them in the remote areas of the woods anyway? Bones didn’t see any of them. But he felt them. He felt them deep within the soul inhabiting the body of Daniel Clock. And he knew things about them.
It was amazing, the amount he knew now.
Some of these spirits chose to serve the masters he had chosen. The rest were in hiding. Hiding from the masters. Too weak to do their bidding. Bones did not want to be like them. He would have done something to hurt them if he could. But he knew if he grabbed the bird that chirped, off to his left, and strangled it in his hammy fist, then only the bird would be killed, the coward soul left to seek some other shell.
How many had the Devils claimed over all these years? he wondered. The number was obviously very vast. Uncountable.
And Bones was here to help them claim more. He didn’t know how he was supposed to do that. Ernst had given him specific instructions before burning him up in the fire but, already, those instructions were becoming confused in Bones’ head. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was he was supposed to do.
Slowly, trying to fight the rigor mortis setting into the body, he wandered through the woods. Sometimes he found himself without the cover of trees, the remaining sunlight glinting through, washing his skin. Wherever the sun touched, it made him itch, like he was developing some kind of rash.
Through the woods he walked. Not knowing where he was going. Not knowing what he was supposed to do but knowing tonight was a very special night for Ilya and Ernst and he didn’t want to let them down. He wanted to be part of their nocturnal network. He wanted to ensure it ran smoothly. He wanted to show them he was more worthy of their praise than Zack.
Bones thought back to last night when he had spit on Zack lying on the couch. A thrill ran through him. It had felt good to do that. Maybe he would use the powers he had acquired in death to kill Zack. But maybe that would only put Zack closer to where the Devils needed him to be. Things were so confusing. Bones wished it were dark. If it were dark, he knew, his thoughts wouldn’t be nearly as jumbled and confused as they were now.
Twenty-six
It seemed a strange combination of light and shadow. Not one of the three saw the wolves at first. Two wolves, charging out of the woods, coming toward them.
Jacob opened his mouth, ready to say something, maybe ready to say, “Run!” But the word never came out. He was to Rachel’s left, Rain to her right. The wolves pounced on Rachel and Rain. They were huge, black and snarling, driving the girls down to the ground. Jacob sprang into action as quickly as the wolves were upon them.
One of the wolves held Rachel down, his large paws on her shoulders, ready to take a bite out of her jugular. Jacob stood over top of it, straddling it, and brought the tire iron against the side of its head, trying to snap its neck in a direction away from Rachel. It worked, at least momentarily. Jacob swiveled from atop the wolf, ready to bludgeon the one that had driven Rain down.
It wasn’t there.
Rain wasn’t there.
Jacob looked toward the woods and saw the wolf dragging Rain’s body toward the wooded cover. Part of him wanted to charge after the wolf. Even if Rain was already dead he wanted to run after it and catch it, beat it to death with the tire iron and dance in its blood. But something inside of him told him it wouldn’t do any good and Jacob had learned to trust those voices. He had to deal with Rachel’s wolf first and then they could go stalking in the woods once that one had been put down.
Rachel’s wolf had become his wolf.
As he turned back to her, he heard the snarl and then felt the wolf’s teeth bite into his leg with savage ferocity. He screamed. It felt like the dog’s teeth went down to the bone. Everything happened so fast and yet there was a great deal of clarity there. Maybe it was like the killer taking a snapshot of the fear in his victim’s eyes before he pulls the trigger. Jacob looked down and saw the wolf clamped onto his leg. He saw the gash on the side of the wolf’s head where the tire iron had struck it and how the blood ran over the wolf’s right eye, turning the white to red. And, almost absurdly, he saw Rachel behind the wolf, taking hold of its tail and pulling because that was the only thing she could do.
Jacob really wished they had brought some other form of weaponry.
Right now, he needed to get the wolf off his leg. He struggled for a good grip on the tire iron, a good angle to hit the dog from.
With everything he had, he brought the iron down across the bridge of the wolf’s snout. He felt the teeth rip downward in his leg. The last thing he wanted to do was fall. The last thing he wanted to do was put himself at the same level as this powerful, snarling beast.
Repeatedly, he brought the iron down, feeling the bone in the wolf’s snout crack, feeling the wolf’s teeth work against bone.
He turned the iron around so he held the arched end in his hand and the beveled end with the little notch on it was pointed toward the wolf, seeking out a soft spot. He angled it to where it impacted on the corner of the wolf’s mouth.
This did it. Maybe it severed some vital muscle there or maybe it simply broke the wolf’s jaw, but the bite loosened.
Now it turned its attentions to the one pulling its tail. It whipped its lithe body around, gnashing its teeth. Or trying to. It was a ghastly sound. Like loose, bloody gums flapping together. Jacob wanted to laugh. Served the fucker right.
He wasted no chance. With the wolf’s back to him, Jacob went after the spine next, beating it
with the metal bar, right in the center of its back, hoping to shatter something all-important to the wolf’s ambulatory faculties.
Finally the wolf crumbled, lying on the ground and whimpering.
Jacob breathed harshly.
“Seems like it would be cruel not to finish it off, huh?”
He didn’t wait for Rachel’s response. With his good leg, Jacob turned the body of the wolf over. Its legs dangled just over the torso, probably paralyzed. He stood over the wolf, pointing the sharp edge of the bar where he thought the heart would be. He drove it down, putting all of his weight behind it. The bar entered smoothly and Jacob, losing his balance, nearly fell on top of it. He threw himself to the right at the last minute, landing on the grass beside it, already smelling the blood and death stink coming from it.
Rachel came over to him, inspecting his leg.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“It’s unbearable,” he said, looking up at the darkening sky.
“It looks pretty mangled.”
“I would say so.”
Rachel rolled up the leg of his pants. She moved her hand over the bloody, tattered skin.
Something had given Rachel this gift. He wondered if they were somehow meant to defeat the Devils.
Aside from being with Rachel that had become his one driving purpose in life.
If he wasn’t the one, then surely Rachel was. Why else would she have that gift? That beautiful and amazing gift? If they weren’t meant to defeat the Devils, then at the very least they were meant to protect others from them.
But they hadn’t protected Rain, had they?
Rachel moved her hands over Jacob’s wound, her fingers sloshing around the wet fringes of his skin. She brought them together, smoothing the skin like one might smooth a piece of crumpled paper or try to match up the edges of a tear.
He felt the power run through him. A deep itch. Something like an orgasm. Or the beginnings of one. An orgasm that would never come to fruition. It was the skin growing back together. The muscles growing back together. The tendons and nerves doing the same.
It wouldn’t be perfect. Rachel wasn’t that powerful yet. But it wouldn’t continue to bleed and it wouldn’t hurt as bad. Jacob knew there would probably always be a scar there and he might end up walking with a slight limp in the long run but, right now, the only thing he cared about was getting through the night.
“What about Rain?” he asked.
“The wolf took her. They took her.”
“Should we go after her?”
“Of course we should go after her.”
“Are we going to go after her?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we should.”
“We can’t spend all night looking for her.”
“I know. But we can’t abandon her. She came here to help us.”
“She got herself further involved with something she never should have been mixed up with in the first place.”
“And that’s worth being abandoned for?”
“Piss on your conscience, Riley.”
“Until dark. And then we come back.”
“Until dark. Now get up and let’s start looking.”
It was that reluctance. That reluctance that assured him Rachel’s feeling about this being their purpose was the same as his.
She held out her hand to help him up.
“Thanks, by the way,” he said. “That’s a hell of a Band-Aid you’ve got there.”
“Well, thank you for getting the fucking thing off me.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Twenty-seven
An integral part of any teenager’s life, especially one in rural Lynchville, was driving. After Wake Up Screaming, Charlotte and Autumn drove back to the high school to get Charlotte’s car. There, Charlotte had driven back to her house, Autumn to hers. From there, Autumn drove over to Charlotte’s house.
Now they sat, side by side, in front of the small but warm fire. Both of them had changed clothes. It being a chilly October evening, both of them had opted for jeans. Charlotte wore a black thermal shirt and Autumn wore a red hoodie over her t-shirt. They had already put away the first half-bottle of wine and were now working on the second. Autumn waited for when Charlotte was going to talk about the mystery boy and then decided she wasn’t going to unless prodded. Autumn was now just drunk enough to do a little prodding.
“So are you going to tell me what’s been bothering you? About this boy.”
Charlotte pulled another Camel Light from the box and lit it. This was the only time either of the girls smoked, around the fire. They both agreed it was actually a pretty disgusting habit and they tried to keep it to a minimum.
“He’s just weird, I guess,” Charlotte said.
What kind of answer was that? Autumn wondered.
“How do you mean, he’s weird?”
“I don’t know. He just doesn’t seem like other people, is all.”
“Like how?”
“Well, he bites me.”
“He bites you?”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s kinky?”
“Maybe. But it’s not like he playfully bites. He breaks skin.”
“He breaks skin?”
“He makes me bleed.”
“He sounds like a psychopath.”
“And I like it.”
“You like it?”
“Yeah. A lot, actually.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Like hell. But that doesn’t stop me from liking it.”
“That is weird.”
“That’s not all.”
“Okay, tell me.”
“You’re going to think I’m fucking insane if I tell you.”
“Try me.”
Now Autumn pulled a cigarette out of her pack. This was getting good. She turned to face Charlotte a little more. That way she could tell if the other girl was telling the truth or making up a story.
“It has to do with the Devils.”
Autumn’s first instinct was to laugh. Then she remembered her lingering dream from last night, the one that had made her feel icky for the greater part of the morning and decided not to.
“So, what?” Autumn said. “You believe in the Devils now?”
“I’ve always believed in them. Well, I’ve always wanted to, anyway.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. You hear about so many things and then you have to start telling yourself they are real. I mean, it would be like too many coincidences if they weren’t real, you know?”
“I’ve heard all of that too but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I believe in them. It’s geographical. Like Christianity. You hear a lot about that too but I don’t know if I would consider myself a believer. And if you’re going by sheer numbers then what about Islam and Judaism and Buddhism? A single person can’t believe all of them but each group boasts a huge amount of believers.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to bring religion into this or anything.”
“I’m sorry. Tell me what you started to tell me.”
“All right. Well, this kid, he just like comes out of nowhere, you know. And he doesn’t go to school and he doesn’t talk about his family or anything like that. He says he doesn’t even live with family. He says he lives with friends. And he’s always wearing the same clothes and he shows up at really odd times and today I think I saw him disappear.”
“Disappear?”
“Yeah. Okay, well, he came to the school today. He was in the bathroom when I went and we did our thing and then I started to leave and when I looked back he just... wasn’t there.”
“There are so many things wrong with that I don’t even want to go into it. I think you’re just trying to freak me out.”
“Why would I do that? Take this seriously, please. I’ve needed someone to talk to for a while. The worst thing is that, when I’m around him, there’s like this magic. I can’t explain it. It’s like something inside of
me just shifts. I start to feel good. I feel like this is the right thing. I mean, it’s an actual physical feeling. And then when he goes the only thing I can think about is seeing him again. So, what do you think?”
“What do I think about what?”
“Do you think I should keep seeing him?”
“I think you should keep seeing him until you find out the truth. Everyone has their kinks. Maybe he’s not a psychopath although he kind of sounds like one but it doesn’t sound like he’s done anything completely insane yet. Except for the disappearing. That’s just weird.”
“You don’t think I really saw it, do you?”
“Well, it’s kind of hard for me to believe. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I don’t even know if I believe it myself. There’s just something about him that feels almost like a figment of my imagination. I wish you could meet him. That would make him more real.”
“Well, any time you want to bring him around, I’d be happy to meet him. Do me a favor, okay, and just be careful. You don’t really know everything there is to know about this guy and as magical as it all sounds you have to realize there’s the potential he might be a dangerous person.”
“Yes. I realize that.”
“And you’re too smart to let him drag you down.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Autumn threw her finished cigarette into the fire and took a slug from the wine bottle, warmth sliding down her throat.
A loud popping sound startled her and she dropped the bottle. She and Charlotte both looked toward the sound, toward the perimeter of the woods.
They saw a silhouette against the outdoor lights of Charlotte’s backyard.
“Shit,” Charlotte muttered. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Autumn said under her breath.
“Hello?” Charlotte blurted, already standing, ready to run.
Autumn tightened her grip on the bottle of wine, ready to use it if she needed to.
The man grunted. Autumn wanted to get closer to him, to see if he was someone they knew. She also wanted to run. She didn’t get a very good feeling coming from this man at all. Maybe he was just someone drunk and stumbling through the neighborhood but Autumn didn’t think The Oaks really had that many homeless winos and she had a minimal amount of faith in the ever vigilant neighborhood watch program.