Sacrifice

by James, Russell

  Marc and Paul organized the papers and clippings at the center workbench. Jeff joined Dave at a table full of pictures. He had yet to broach the subject of Katy’s revelation last night. He mentally tabled the idea. What difference did it make? He looked over at Ken. Ken stood in front of a collection of yellowed newspaper pages, his face slack in confusion.

  “You okay, Ken?” Jeff asked.

  “Huh?” Ken’s eyes came back into focus. “Yeah, yeah. I’m cool.”

  Jeff nodded and headed back to the house. Ken whipped out his little notebook, read the last entry then scribbled down a new one. Dave hobbled over with a handful of printed computer pages.

  “We may have jumped the gun,” Dave said. “These articles don’t tell me the Woodsman is back. These deaths are months to years apart. And based on the names and races, all these kids could not have been descendants of the founders.”

  “So he was watching for the Woodsman,” Ken said as he delivered a handful of papers. “But hadn’t seen his return. He shouldn’t since we gave Silas a first-class roasting.”

  “There was some other catalyst,” Paul said. “You guys talked to him on the phone, but I saw him in person. He was desperate to get us together.”

  Marc carried over a small cardboard box.

  “And it looks like he collected this for us,” Marc said.

  He opened the box and inside were a clamshell, a chunk of rusting metal, a scrap of fur, a feather, a bag of blue lye crystals, and a small plastic container filled with water.

  Jeff entered from the house with a small, black cell phone in his hands. His face was white.

  “This was in the living room,” he said, “shoved between two couch cushions. All our numbers are in the call history so it’s Bob’s. No one has used it since he died. The memory is empty, no photos, no saved numbers. Just one recording.”

  Jeff flipped the phone open and pressed a sequence of buttons. “It looks like he set this to record, and no one ever found it between the cushions.”

  Bob’s desperate voice came out of the speaker. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve asked nicely before,” a woman said. “My friends here don’t want to be so nice this time.”

  There was the sound of a slap, and then the muffled scraping of cushions against each other as some struggle took place on the couch.

  “They’re gone,” Bob said. “They all burned in the fire. The whole bag.”

  “We both know you’re lying,” the woman said. “At least one made it through. What did you do with it?”

  “Why the fuck would we save one?”

  “Maybe they dropped it.” It was a man’s voice, closer to the phone than the woman was, probably one of the ones holding Bob on the couch. “He wouldn’t even know.”

  There was a pause punctuated by the sound of Bob’s labored breaths.

  “Maybe he didn’t know anything,” the woman said. “But now he knows too much.” There was the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle. “Cover our tracks.”

  There was another symphony of cushion scraping and then silence. Jeff stopped the playback.

  “That’s all there is,” Jeff said.

  The room went still for a minute

  “They killed him,” Marc said, stunned.

  “We have to take this to the police,” Ken said.

  “Waste of time,” Paul said. “There’s been a parade of people through the crime scene. Bob’s body is cremated so any signs of struggle are gone. Chain of custody on the phone is broken so the recording is suspect. Plus the whole conversation is vague. They could be talking about drugs for all anyone knows. Oh, and we’ll need to explain the collection in the garage.”

  There was no disputing Paul’s logic.

  “That woman is dead certain one of the Woodsman’s bones is still around,” Jeff said. He turned to Marc. “Could we have missed one?”

  “No way,” Marc said. “I brought up everything in the sack.”

  “Then we dropped it,” Jeff said, “and it’s still under the mill. The place didn’t burn down to the foundation.”

  “I checked the mill out this morning,” Dave said. “The place is locked up.”

  “Didn’t stop us last time,” Ken said.

  “But now we’re adults,” Jeff said. “So let’s ask permission.”

  On the drive over to the village hall, Paul thought about the implications of the possible return of the Woodsman. Possibly dozens of kids could be at immediate risk, and his ingrained cop’s protective imperative rose to the occasion. But there was more to it than that. For the first time in his life, he felt an even stronger drive. Not the need to defend the weak, but to defend his own.

  Knowing the wave of ribbing being an older parent would create, he hadn’t told the others that Hallie was pregnant. But he thought about it constantly, with that mix of trepidation and enthusiasm that all first-time parents experience. If the Woodsman came back, Paul knew his first born, founder descendant or not, would be at the top of the spirit’s list.

  Finally graced with the chance to have a family, he could not let it be pulled out from under him. He couldn’t let that happen to him, to Hallie, and especially his yet to be born child. Whatever it took, the Woodsman was going to stay on the other side of Hell.

  Chapter Sixty

  “So we just walk in and tell Richard Parker like it is?” Dave said.

  Of the many things that remained unchanged the past decades in Sagebrook Village, the name of the Head Selectman topped the list. Richard Parker might have been old enough to draw Social Security, but he wasn’t about to give up the reins of village power, even with a son and grandson waiting in the wings to take over.

  The five stood outside the village hall in the hazy afternoon. Behind them, blankets dotted the green and a few tourists window-shopped the village stores.

  “In our favor,” Paul said, “the statute of limitations has long run out.”

  “He’s a descendant of the founders,” Dave said. “They tracked their kids and shielded them with the amulets, so he’ll know about the Woodsman, or whatever they call him. He wouldn’t know that the fire at the mill saved lives. He owes us.”

  “You guys head over to the mill,” Jeff said. “We’ll be over in a minute with the key.”

  Dave, Marc and Ken walked in the direction of the mill, and Paul and Jeff entered the village hall.

  “You mind doing all the talking?” Jeff said. “Walking in with a set of demands might make me look like some rich West Coast asshole.”

  “What do you mean ‘look like’?” Paul said with a big grin.

  The head selectman was in. His office walls had accrued a few more pictures and mementos over the past three decades, and there was now a computer on the desk. What was left of his hair was solid silver.

  “Selectman Parker,” Paul said. “I’m Paul Hampton.”

  The selectman looked past Paul to Jeff.

  “And you are Jeff Block,” he said. “Sagebrook’s techno wunderkind.” The usual awe was absent from his description.

  “We’re here about the death of our friend, Bob Armstrong,” Paul said. “We all graduated from Whitman together.”

  Parker had only really looked Jeff in the eye so far. Now he gave both of them a closer inspection.

  “Nasty piece of work, that one,” Parker said. “Burned down the mill in 1980.”

  “There’s more to that story than you know,” Jeff said.

  “I doubt it,” Parker said. He leaned back in his chair.

  A man in a dark green constable’s uniform appeared in the doorway. He was in his mid-twenties and clearly a supporter of steroids to enhance performance. His muscles bulged under a shirt that was at least a size too small. He had a tiny, sloped forehead that hinted he probably didn’t use his library card very often. Parker hadn’t retired, but apparently Pickney had been replaced with a newer model. Parker held up a hand to halt the constable’s advance.

  “There�
��s a story behind that night,” Paul said.

  “Let me guess,” Parker said. “He burned the place down to send the spirit of Tom Silas to hell and protect future generations of children.”

  Paul and Jeff gave each other stunned looks.

  “There was no trial,” Jeff said. “How could you find that out?”

  “Bob told me,” Parker said. “I visited him in jail before he pled out to arson.”

  “And you still let him go to jail?” Jeff grabbed the edge of Parker’s desk and leaned in. “He acted to save your children!”

  The constable moved in from the doorway. Paul turned to block his advance.

  “Hey man,” he reassured the cop. “No need to get—”

  The constable grabbed Paul’s upturned palm and spun Paul around like a top. He twisted Paul’s arm behind his back and planted the side of Paul’s face on the edge of Parker’s desk.

  “You need to stay calm, old man,” the constable said. He shot Jeff a withering look. “Ditto for you.”

  “See what happens when you don’t stay civil?” Parker said. “Jack, I think they understand.”

  Constable Jack released Paul, and he went to his knees. His face was beet red and he panted like he was out of breath. He grabbed the edge of the desk and hauled himself back up. He had a look of utter humiliation. Jeff started to say something to him but Paul gave him a quick head shake that said he was okay.

  “So here’s the bottom line,” Parker said. “Your buddy Bob said he did what he did to banish the spirit of Tom Silas. Whether it worked or not, the founder’s families did not care. We protected our children with the amulets for two hundred years. We spaced our children, we watched our bloodlines. We adapted centuries ago to the threat.”

  “Except for innocents like Josie Mulfetta,” Jeff said.

  “Over time some people chose not to follow the restrictions,” Parker said. “We can’t risk one of the purer children by passing an amulet to an out-of-wedlock child or one conceived out of sequence. Those parents made a choice for which their children may suffer.”

  “I’m thinking Josie’s mom didn’t know about that risk,” Jeff said.

  “I’m not responsible for families that don’t pass down our oral traditions.”

  Jeff balled his fists and gritted his teeth.

  “Burning the mill could not go unpunished,” Parker said, “since the county police caught Bob at the scene. He had to pay for that crime.”

  “And keep quiet about the one your ancestors committed two hundred years ago,” Jeff said.

  “Who would believe him if he talked?” Parker said with a smug smile. “None of the friends he claimed were there with him were around to back him up.”

  Jeff broke eye contact with Parker. He took a half step back like he’d been hit with a blast of wind.

  “So,” Parker said as he stood up from his desk. “Whatever the hell you think I’m going to do for you or the reputation of your dead friend, forget it. Our children remain protected, and our records are in a far safer place than the old museum now. So why don’t you”—he pointed at Jeff—“wing your way back to California. And you”—he pointed at Paul—“go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under. Jack, could you see these gentlemen out?”

  The constable unsnapped the cover of the pepper spray on his belt. “Gentlemen?”

  The friendly neighborhood constable closed the door of the village hall behind Jeff and Paul. They walked toward the mill in silence.

  Jeff could feel Paul’s humiliation burning inside him. Paul had always been what passed as muscle in the Half Dozen. Four geeks and a skinny borderline delinquent didn’t intimidate anyone, but Paul’s presence in that Patriots football jacket lent some credibility to the group’s ability to defend itself. Jeff thought about the first time Paul pulled their nuts out of a fire.

  The summer of their junior year, the boys had been out messing around one night, driving twenty-five miles per hour in a two-car rolling roadblock on CR 347, just to see how big a traffic jam they could make. One pissed off driver in a pickup with out of county plates blasted down the narrow shoulder and forced Jeff’s Pinto to the side of the road. Out of the truck came three teens breathing fire. Each had grabbed something from the cab as a weapon: a tire iron, a chain, a screwdriver.

  These three were well out of the Half Dozen’s league. Jeff and Bob got out of the Pinto, Jeff mostly to direct the upcoming damage to himself rather than his car. Dave got out of the second car, but the addition of the guy with the shaggy blond hair and glasses didn’t make the enemy break stride.

  Then Paul got out. He was half a foot taller than the tallest of the three. It was mid-season for football and Paul was ripped. He made a big deal about tossing his football jacket on the hood of the car and cracking his knuckles. They paused.

  “Sorry, guys,” Paul said. “Just having some fun. No hard feelings.” He looked at the Nassau County plate. “You’re kind of far from home to get into trouble. Pretty sure my friends are a lot closer than yours.”

  They couldn’t know that off the field Paul was a teddy bear. The bluff worked and they backed off. From that night on, Paul wore that mantle of protector.

  Until Constable Jack just ripped it off his back.

  Jeff could not bring himself to say something reassuring. It would only reinforce that he understood Paul’s shame and embarrassment.

  “Sometimes you forget how old you are,” Paul said, breaking the awkward silence. “I must be twice that guy’s age. How did that happen?”

  “One day at a time,” Jeff said.

  “There was a day in the city,” Paul said, “two weeks before 9-11. I took down two kids robbing a lady at knifepoint in an alley south of Grand Central. By myself.”

  “It’s funny,” Jeff said. “Once we were all back together this week, I sure as hell didn’t feel fifty. It was like we had just been together yesterday, and we were still teenagers.”

  “Allow me to confirm that we are not.”

  “Don’t sweat it man,” Jeff said. “Bigger fish to fry. We need to get to the mill before those three idiot friends of ours break in there out of force of habit.”

  Paul didn’t smile.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Ken had no idea where he was.

  In an instant everything around him became unfamiliar, as if he had been teleported across the country and dropped in a strange town. But he still knew who he was there with. Marc and Dave were in front of him. He wasn’t sure how. He hadn’t seen them for years, but there they were. Wherever he was, he would stick with them. All for none…

  When they turned right he saw the waterwheel from the mill. That looked familiar. The memory came back. An awful fire.

  He recognized the mill, and it was as if it had been black and white and fuzzy and was now focused and in full color. The rest of the village returned to familiarity, and he remembered why he was here.

  The same thing had happened earlier, in Bob’s garage. Only there it was worse, because he had no reference for that place, having never been there before. If he hadn’t had the notebook to remind him, his friends would have surely found out he was losing his mind.

  The lapses were getting bad. The doctors had said they might. That was the real bitch of the disease. It never reversed, but it could stabilize for years and lull him into a false sense of security with an occasional memory lapse. It could also collapse overnight, and he would wake up in a world that made less sense than Alice’s Wonderland. Ken feared that this week was his entry down the rabbit hole. At the first sign of a talking caterpillar he was heading for a hospital.

  Ken scribbled into his notebook:

  BOB’S KILLER SEARCHES FOR THE WOODSMAN’S BONE.

  YOUR FRIENDS CAN BE TRUSTED.

  YOUR FREE KNICKS SEASON TICKETS ARE WAITING AT WILL CALL.

  Ken was amazed that he remembered the mill, but not just as a tribute to his memory. The last he’d seen of it was as a blazing torch. The rebuilt duplication w
as perfect. The wood was certainly in better shape than he remembered, but plank for plank it was a perfect copy of the original.

  “The place was locked yesterday morning,” Dave said as they mounted the steps. He gave the door handle a useless twist. “No change.”

  Marc shaded his eyes and peered in through the window.

  “You know, the bed stone has to be the same one,” he said. “There are still burn marks around the edge. Maybe there are some fragments melted into it, and that was what the woman was talking about.”

  Ken searched hard and pulled up a memory of listening to the recording on Bob’s cell phone.

  “No, she was specific. There was a bone somewhere, something that avoided the process.”

  “Still…” Marc said.

  Ken thought Marc had to feel guilty. If he’d dropped one of the bones, or missed one of them when he put them back in the sack, Bob’s death would be his fault. He rested a hand on Marc’s shoulder.

  “No sweat, man. We’ll figure it out.”

  Marc nodded with grim determination.

  The three sat on the ledge by the waterwheel. Water trickled around the edges of the closed sluiceway. Moss covered the cups in the waterwheel. The pond water stank of dead fish.

  The smell triggered a swirl of memories for Ken: the nightmare about the pond he had after the lightning strike, the long walk around the pond the night they burned the mill, the mad dash back later with sirens in the distance.

  Ken had to have more than that. Didn’t his parents ever take him down here? Hadn’t he ridden his bike past here on the way to the beach? Were those memories wiped away for good or just temporarily mis-filed by the disease? Would everything eventually be gone like that and leave him only in the moment? And would that moment keep contracting until his life broke into an infinite string of seconds, with him unaware of any of the preceding ones?