The Trail

by Brian Francis

  She’d almost told Sheriff Adams…umm, Barry, too much about John. She’d talked about the church and John’s religious parents, and the crazy neighbor, but that hadn’t been the worst of it. She’d almost told him more. Much more.

  Thinking back, she was glad Barry had been called away. She didn’t want him to know everything.

  What would Barry think of her now that she’d made a fool of herself by collapsing on the kitchen floor? Sure, cops were supposed to be able to handle that sort of thing, but Nicole didn’t want to be considered a “job”. She wanted to be considered the sheriff’s friend…or maybe more. She liked the way he held her. She really liked the way he listened. He didn’t feel the need to interrupt, to backfill, to question. Barry just let her talk, and he listened. He really listened. It was a simple but rare accomplishment.

  Today wasn’t her first time experiencing flashbacks of John’s suicide. Once, at work, a customer had frightened her. She hadn’t noticed the man at first. He’d been sitting on a stool at the far end of the diner. When he turned her way and she saw his face in the clear daylight that streamed through the diner’s window, she was horrified.

  He wore a black trench coat and a black jeff cap, not unlike the one her late husband had worn. He had turned his head and looked directly at her, revealing that most of his jaw was missing.

  The entire left side of his face was an empty wasteland, a crisscrossing of white scars and dead tissue. Pale blue eyes stared out from that gaunt visage, reminding her exactly of John after the shotgun mutilated his face. It was the same empty space. The same incomprehensible nothingness.

  Nicole shrieked and dropped her tray full of sodas, scattering a bunch of church-going old ladies. She apologized to the customers, and nodded quickly towards the man in the trench coat, but everyone had realized what had happened. Everyone had understood what triggered her panic, because they’d all seen the grisly pictures of John’s suicide on the Internet.

  That was another problem. After Sheriff Adams investigated the suicide scene, a state photographer came in to take pictures of her husband. She thought nothing of it, her mind awash in a million other miseries. For some reason, this photographer was fired soon after the shoot, and he let the pictures leak onto the Internet.

  Nicole pleaded with the law to take the pictures down, and they did. Six weeks later. Nicole knew that the town had seen John in that horrible condition. Missing his jaw. The blood. The tremendous blood. The photographs were just one more violation in a life that felt increasingly violated.

  Nicole mopped the hallway and entered her bedroom. She looked at the bed. She looked down at the hardwood floor. The mop shook in her hands. She looked at the blue jewelry box on her dresser, then set the mop aside and opened the lid.

  When the police had asked her if John left a suicide note, she said no. She was tired of the prying. Tired of the violations. Tired of everything.

  So she had lied to the police.

  Nicole pulled out the letter and began to read.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Scott!” yelled Susan. “Scott!”

  Susan had just kissed Jack, and she suddenly wanted Scott. What the hell is wrong with me?

  “Scott! Scott!” Susan hollered. “Jack, we need to find Scott and Kim and get back to the campsite. It’s getting dark, Jack.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “You’re right.”

  Susan thought about how she had acted at the party in college. I disappeared after I kissed Jack. Am I doing it again? Do people ever change? It was true that she wanted to find Scott and Kim because it was getting dark. But Susan wasn’t sure why she needed Scott now. Do I feel guilty? Am I truly afraid of the dark?

  Although she liked Jack, whenever she was felt really afraid, she turned to Scott.

  Is it Scott’s confidence that calms me? His assurance that everything will be just fine? Jack is a great guy, sensitive and caring. Is he too sensitive? Sometimes she didn’t want a guy to listen and be kind. Sometimes she just wanted a guy to be a guy.

  They silently hiked toward the campsite. She wondered what Jack was thinking. Jack did collect the firewood. That shows he is sort of a protector and a provider, Susan thought. How will he act tonight? Susan decided to wait until after this camping trip to make up her mind. It’s crazy how life works out, Susan mused. She had planned on telling Scott that she wanted a baby. Now she was considering telling him that she wanted a divorce.

  They arrived at the campsite to find it empty. The tents and firewood remained undisturbed. Where was Scott? While she was off kissing Jack, was it possible that Scott would do the same thing with Kim? She didn’t trust Scott in the fidelity department. She knew he hooked up with other girls on his travel assignments.

  Hooked up, Susan thought. Imagining anything beyond that made her want to throw up. When he returned from his trips, Scott’s clothes reeked of cigarette smoke and other women. Scott wasn’t a smoker, but he would play the part to get into a conversation with another woman.

  Kim and Scott appeared, hiking up an alternate trail from the lake. “Hey,” Kim said. “What’s going on?”

  Susan studied Kim. Is Kim my friend? She couldn’t tell. She thought they were possibly becoming friends, but Kim was unmarried. And the longer a girl stayed unattached, the more the rules of female friendships went out the window.

  “Hi, Kim,” said Jack. “We were out collecting more wood. Where were you?”

  “We were out collecting more wood, too.”

  Susan noticed that among the four of them, no one had any wood.

  They heard a splash from the lake.

  “Wow,” said Kim. “This spot is great. We’re so close to the lake.”

  Scott came up behind Susan, hugged her, and whispered in her ear. “I missed you, babe.”

  Susan returned the hug but didn’t say anything.

  Jack settled into a camping chair, positioned himself next to the fire ring, and cracked open a beer. “Let’s get camping started.”

  The two girls eased into chairs as Scott started the fire. It didn’t catch at first, and everyone offered good-natured advice without getting up from their chairs.

  “Arrange the logs tee-pee style, Scott,” Jack said.

  Kim chimed in, “Uh-oh, do you need lighter fluid?”

  “He doesn’t need lighter fluid,” Jack said. “Scott’s a purist.”

  After a few minutes of conflicting advice, the fire sparked and blazed.

  “Can I get anyone a beer?” Scott asked.

  “How about a wine cooler?” Susan said.

  Scott smirked and glanced over at Jack. “Ah, yes, Susan really likes to rough it in the woods with her wine coolers.” Jack didn’t smile back. Scott shrugged and said, “Sure, wine cooler it is. How ’bout you, Kim?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have a wine cooler, too. Thanks.” She winked at Susan and they both smiled.

  Maybe Kim was on her side.

  “I put the wine coolers in the lake to keep ’em cool. I’ll go get ’em.” Scott started the short trek down to the water.

  At the bank, the twisted white arms of the decapitated hiker bobbed silently, intermixed with the wine coolers.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Night came on slowly in the woods of central Pennsylvania. Darkness filled the terrain like a dull black liquid oozing across the ground, seeping into each hole and crooked path. The day creatures grew hushed as nocturnal beasts came to life. Trees disappeared in the darkness. Only the trees along the trail, which boasted reflective blaze markers that picked up the moon’s glow, offered a bit of hope for a lost evening hiker. Dead leaves hissed, the source of the movement now unseen.

  Farther back, the town stretched and settled into cheap upholstered furniture. The employees at the supermarket changed shifts, the gas station attendant flipped off the neon sign, and the proprietor of Tucker’s General Store locked the door.

  At the Pine Meadow Diner, the hostess erased the lunch specials on the white board with a
wet paper towel, and wrote the dinner specials in red marker: “Pork Chop. London Broil.”

  Across the street at the garage, a sole mechanic rubbed his greasy hands on the sides of his trousers. He looked up at the sky and wondered if it would rain.

  The Black Horse Tavern served its regular customers. Some had been seated at the bar since noon, and they merely shifted positions and assumed a different posture—the posture of the evening drinker. The bar was over a hundred years old, and in its day had served wartime soldiers and settlers on their trek out west. The bar had also served several generations of the town, each customer with his or her own epiphanies and miseries. The overworked. The underworked. The worked under. The ones looking to get out. The ones who cannot leave.

  A quarter of a mile away from the Black Horse Tavern, up Zeigler Road, the nearly defunct town of Crenson settled into its own evening rituals. Mothers drank alone, while babies screamed in unattended rooms. Fathers were absent, or home and abusive. Dogs howled with empty bellies. A cat cried, accidentally ensnared in a raccoon trap. Rotten laundry hung on clotheslines, long forgotten. Mold filled the spaces between the walls.

  The town square of Crenson had once displayed a statue of a Civil War hero. Now the square featured scattered trash and scraps of yellowed newspapers. Swirling debris. Silent stoplights. The townspeople had long ago stripped the statue for material. Only the pedestal remained, the base emblazoned with graffiti.

  The only legible phrase said, “White Power.”

  Inside a crumbling barn a cow stood knee deep in its own feces. Angry flies tormented the beast’s eyes. A few stray chickens squawked as they explored the waste for sustenance.

  An abandoned church sat on top of a hill overlooking the town. The church sign proclaimed “Repent Sinners.” Ivy obscured the letters. Through the dusty windows, down the warped isle, and past the broken pews, a single candle burned on the altar.

  A thin rain started to fall on the town of Crenson. At first, it was barely a mist, but soon the rain took shape and ticked steadily against the trees. Low clouds inched across the sky and enshrouded the church’s spire.

  A car moved along Zeigler Road. Another. One by one, a line of vehicles made their slow progression up the hill towards the church. A ceremony was about to begin.

  The head waitress of the Pine Meadow Diner sat at the foot of her bed and read her husband’s suicide note over and over again.

  A group of four campers laughed together over old college jokes. The undiscovered body of a mutilated hiker bobbed silently in the lake.

  And a meeting at the police station continued well into the night.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Rain. Shit. Scott hadn’t anticipated rain. He reached into the lake and pulled out two wine coolers. A thick white birch branch bobbed nearby. Scott barely gave it a glance, his mind on the weather. He studied the lake. Raindrops connected with the surface of the water and set off tiny ripples.

  Shit, Scott thought again. He’d studied the weather reports. He’d read the paper. He’d looked at the Internet. Not one source predicted rain. Not one. And yet, here it was. Cold and wet and undeniable.

  He marched back to the campsite. Susan and Kim were huddled under a green tarp.

  “Jack put this up,” Susan said, gesturing to the tarp.

  Scott said nothing.

  Jack stood unprotected against the rain, with a beer clutched against his chest and a smile on his face. “Looks like it’s gonna be a wet one, buddy,” he reported cheerfully.

  “Yeah, ” Scott said. “I can’t believe it’s raining. I checked all week, they said no rain.”

  “We’ve been in worse,” Jack commented, looking up at the sky.

  “Yeah,” Scott said. “Remember our trip to Maine? I woke up in standing water. That was miserable.”

  “And camping in New Hampshire—it snowed! Completely unexpected.”

  “Jesus,” Kim said. “You guys don’t have a very good track record with this sort of thing.”

  “We do,” Scott assured her, feeling oddly defensive. “We only had two washout trips, in all the years we’ve been camping.”

  “Make that three,” Kim retorted, looking at the rain.

  “I think this thing is gonna blow over,” Scott said, handing the wine coolers to the girls and working his blue windbreaker over his head. He cracked open a beer for himself.

  The campfire protested the rain with a low hiss. As they sipped their drinks, the moon broke through the low clouds, and the rain slackened.

  Jack told a story about the time he was locked out of his apartment and got stuck climbing in through a window. Scott told a story about a party he threw junior year that featured only non-alcoholic beer, and how a couple people fell down and acted drunk. Susan told a story about her old roommate, the soccer player, and how they’d go up on a big hill behind campus and talk for hours. Jack told another story, this time about being thrown out of the college bar. Susan talked about her college job as a waitress. Scott talked about his trip to Egypt. And his trip to Peru. And his trip to Vietnam.

  Kim remained silent, studying their faces in the light from the renewed campfire. Finally, she spoke up.

  “Scott. I want to hear about the time you killed someone.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Nicole read the letter and shook. Her whole body heaved with each sentence. She refolded it carefully, trailing her fingers over the delicate creases. After John’s suicide, Nicole had read the letter every day. Sometimes several times a day. She’d even made a copy of the letter. One that she could keep in her pocket during work, and touch any time she thought of her husband.

  The vision in the kitchen had brought her back. John with his skull blasted away. What brought on that vision, Nicole wondered. Something about Barry, maybe?

  She put the original letter back in the box and cleaned her house again. She clung to the act of cleaning like a life preserver in rough seas. Maybe that was why she’d never tried for any career beyond a waitress at a dumpy diner in the woods. Serving people kept her sane.

  Before she met John she’d wanted to get out of town. She wanted to go off to college like some of her friends. Then she’d gotten pregnant. An old story, really. Not even worth retelling. “Rural girl trapped by pregnancy doesn’t fulfill her dreams.” Then, when her son was born…the shock, the sadness.

  A knock at Nicole’s front door brought her out of her daydream. The banging was purposeful, serious. Somebody wanted to see Nicole…now!

  She raced to the front door, flicked on the outside light, and peered through the peephole. Barry stood on the porch, clutching his hat to his chest. Nicole’s stomach tingled with excitement. She didn’t know why he was here, but she was glad he’d returned. She wouldn’t be spending the entire night alone.

  Nicole opened the door.

  “Your husband was childhood friends with Martin Levy?” the sheriff blurted. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Martin Levy?” Nicole said, blinking hard. “Martin Levy,” she repeated. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”

  “They were friends, weren’t they, Nic?”

  Nicole composed herself and took a step back into the house. The sheriff entered without asking.

  “Sure, they were friends,” Nicole said. “That was the boy who lived across the street. I didn’t mention his name because I didn’t think it mattered. Does it?”

  “It might.”

  “How? Why?

  “Nic, we’ve got some missing hikers. We’ve got some other problems, too. I have a feeling that the things that used to happen in Crenson are starting to happen again.”

  Nicole took a deep breath and stared at the sheriff. Not again, she thought. It can’t happen again.

  “Nicole, what do you know about the ceremonies in the woods. The black masses?”

  “I don’t know anything. What do you know?”

  Sheriff Adams sighed. “Nicole, please just talk to me. People’s lives are in jeopa
rdy. I wasted enough time, and I can’t waste any more. People in the woods need your help right now. What do you know about the masses?”

  “I went to a couple of them with John. He wanted me to go. I didn’t like what I saw and I left.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Strange stuff. Sexual stuff. Things that were just so wrong.”

  Sheriff Adams shook his head, as though disappointed by her lack of details. But Nicole couldn’t say it all. She wanted Barry to like her.