The Trail

by Brian Francis

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Sheriff Adams stared into the center of the machine. It was a large, stainless steel tub. Splashes of blood trickled over the rim. A giant combine churned blood and bone meal. All the bodies, roughly twenty in all, hung upside down around the perimeter of the room. Each skull had a hole bored into it, and the blood drained into small stainless steel trays, which fed into an irrigation system that ran the length of the floor. The blood funneled from there into the machine in the center of the room.

  Adams studied the intricate system in horror. Rivets of red traveled through the shafts like slow-moving sludge. Tiny skull particles and thick clots of brain matter clogged sections of the drainage system, causing slick overflows in places.

  He leaned against the wall and breathed heavily. He let out a low moan. I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to die. He never fully considered the possibility of death before. Never thought that his life would end here, beneath the abandoned church. Sure, he’d had a number of close calls on the force. The botched robbery he inadvertently interrupted, where the robber had pointed a .357 in his face. Even then, he didn’t consider death.

  Maybe it was his ego. Adams didn’t think that he would die in such a mundane manner. Just an officer shot in a robbery. That’s merely one column in the bigger papers. Sure, the people of Crenson would care. But beyond that? Nobody would notice.

  Adams had no doubt now. This was death. This place was death, and he was in its epicenter. He imagined his own body strung up from the ceiling, draining of life, twitching. He thought of Nicole. Thought of his first love, Randi. The things he’d like to take back. The things he’d like to do over. Randi—he would have treated her better. And Nicole. Well, Nicole, he’d never know.

  He thought of the four hikers he’d seen earlier today. Or was it yesterday? Fatigue and the certitude of death caused time and reality to cloud in his mind. Those hikers. With their new camping gear. The blonde. And the dark-haired girl. Both beautiful. He wished he was one of those guys right now. Getting beered-up in the woods with their girlfriends. That’s living. He wished he’d been privileged like them. Went to college. Lived in a bigger town—instead of this backwoods shit-hole. He wondered what the hikers were doing right now.

  “What do you think?” asked Father Glick, extending his arm and gesturing around the room. His sudden appearance didn’t even surprise Adams. He was past surprise. “I guess you could call it a hobby of mine. Sure, it’s not perfect. The drainage backs up at times. And the machine is loud as hell. But it serves its purpose.”

  Glick’s eyes burned deep in their sockets. The blood in the room reflected off his pale skin, giving the priest a ghastly red glow.

  “And what is the purpose?” Adams asked.

  “The purpose?” laughed Glick. He dipped his hand into the giant tub and lustily drank from his cupped palm. “The purpose is eternal life.”

  Adams shuddered.

  The priest drank again from the tub and the blood dribbled off his chin. He began to move toward the sheriff. “The blood of the town gives us energy. Other religions use blood as a metaphor to lie about everlasting life. We use the real thing…and we achieve immortality.”

  “You’re a quack,” Adams sputtered, glaring at the priest. The old man’s skin seemed to flush and pulsate and look, well…younger. Newer, somehow. Or maybe not. The sheriff’s head swirled in the sickness of the air, and he didn’t trust his eyesight. “You’re just a killer, not a fucking prophet. And when you’re strapped to the electric chair, you’ll die painfully, just like everybody else.”

  The priest lunged at Adams, pulling a metal shank from under his robes, and smashed the rod into the sheriff’s face. He grabbed the sheriff by the hair and thrust his head into the vat of blood.

  Adams screamed until the warm fluid filled his mouth. Filled his eyes. Choked and convulsed him. Filled his lungs.

  Then the darkness came.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  “I think we should tell the police,” said Susan. “Look, I don’t want to get Jack in trouble, but we can’t just bury a body in the woods and not tell anyone. This person has a family, friends. They’ll be worried about him.”

  Susan didn’t want to get Jack in trouble, but her decision was also about herself. Susan knew if they buried the body she’d be plagued with guilt for the rest of her life.

  “No,” Scott said firmly. “I vote no. We don’t tell the police.”

  Susan looked at Scott in disbelief. “Scott, if we explain what happened, Jack won’t get in trouble. It was dark. Jack was scared. And what was this guy even doing near our tent, anyway?”

  “We shouldn’t tell the police,” Scott repeated.

  “And why, Scott? Why shouldn’t we tell them? We can’t just pretend nothing happened.”

  Scott shrugged. Susan was suddenly reminded of Todd Stork. Scott had seemed devastated when it happened, but suddenly Susan wasn’t sure about the true source of Scott’s anguish.

  Was he actually upset about having killed someone? Or was he upset about the disruption to his college plans? His career plans?

  Thinking about it now, Susan hated to admit it: but Scott really hadn’t seemed too upset about Stork’s death. The words he spoke, the clichés he uttered, had resembled more of a man trying to recall what it’s like to be sorry, than an actual person full of remorse.

  And what about Scott and Kim? Was he really trying to stifle her screams? Or was he trying to kill her?

  “Susan, look, we can’t tell the cops,” pleaded Scott.

  “Why?”

  “Susan, Jesus. Did you see the cops? Wake up! They’re all hicks. They hate rich kids coming out here with their fancy cars and new tents. You saw that one cop yesterday. The one that fucked with us in the parking lot. They’re all like that, Susan. Every cop around here is like that. We’d all go to jail for a long time. And Jack may get worse than jail.”

  Susan looked at Jack. His gaze dropped to the ground. “What do you wanna do, Jack?” she asked. “I guess you have the most to lose.” She moved closer to him. “What do you think?”

  Jack shrugged. The sky had lightened to a dull gray. The night was waning. “I guess Scott makes a good point,” Jack whispered, barely audible. “I guess we shouldn’t tell the police.”

  “I can’t believe this!” Susan shouted. “How can you live with this on your conscience? How can we just bury a guy and never mention it again? Never say anything?”

  “Well, that’s two votes to bury the body,” Scott said calmly. “And one vote against.”

  All eyes turned to Kim. She was crouched next to the tent, smoking a cigarette and looking off into the trees. She had that same dull, listless look that Susan noted earlier. It was like Kim was here, but also somewhere far away at the same time.

  Scott approached Kim, leaned down, and asked softly, “What would you like to do, Kim?”

  Susan thought she detected another flicker of understanding between them.

  Kim looked up, took a drag from her cigarette, and said coldly, “Bury the body.”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Morning arrived in Crenson. About six miles west of the town center, four campers finished digging a shallow grave deep in the woods. They spent the night taking turns shoveling and cursing. When their small spade broke, they continued to claw at the earth with their hands. They raced against the sunlight. Dirt encrusted their skin, sweat poured from their faces.

  One of the hikers was opposed to the burial, claiming the guilt would be too much. Her protests were ignored by the others. The others wanted the deed done, and wanted to put this event in a compartment of their mind, never to revisit again. They wanted to tuck the thing away, like the expensive camping equipment they stowed in their hiking bags.

  The one camper did not have a hiking bag, but rather a blue suitcase. She didn’t know the others as well, and could feel their bond, and in turn, her distance from them. She attempted to subvert the group by having sex wi
th the one married man. In her mind, this was the way to enter the circle. To infiltrate and gain attention. She confronted most conflicts with sex.

  It had worked. She was closer to them, but now she was having second thoughts. Did she really want the closeness she had gained?

  The camper who had shot the hiker in the dark was trying to appear calm, but inwardly he was going crazy. He couldn’t believe what had happened. He replayed the event in his mind, over and over, each time hoping the outcome would be different.

  He pulled the trigger, fire ripped through the darkness, and the hiker’s head exploded with a muffled pop. He’d never been in trouble. Any real trouble. DUIs, sure. But not like this. Not something he couldn’t undo. His sweat mixed with tears as he continued to pull dirt from the ground.

  The leader of the group didn’t really become the leader until after the murder. He showed an odd display of decisiveness and clinical distance when confronted with the problem. His demeanor made him the natural leader. He took votes, assigned roles, and watched people jump into action. He gave off a military vibe in his cold, clipped speech pattern and steely gaze. The murder had transformed him into someone else. Or rather, it reawakened in him the person he once was. During the argument over the murder, he grabbed and hid the gun without anyone noticing.

  The wife of the leader didn’t want to be his wife anymore. Didn’t even want to know the leader. She did what he said. Sure, they all did. They were in a jam and someone had to get them out of it. She would play along. She would do her part. But when they got out of this…if they got out of this, things would be different. She was finished with the leader. He was a mean man. A nasty man. He looked nice. He appeared successful. Not many people knew the leader like she did. Recently, she felt repulsed when people displayed admiration for the leader. You don’t know him like I do, she’d think. They didn’t know about the psychological abuse. About his ego. About…something else.

  What was it? Something new? Yes. They didn’t know how the leader was unmoved by death. The leader felt nothing. She saw that now, and it scared her.

  Back in Crenson, in a basement of an abandoned church, a police officer was slipping out of consciousness. His head forcibly submerged into a vat of warm blood. He was suffocating. His body trembled and shook, fighting for his last few seconds of life.

  Behind him, a gaunt priest held the back of the sheriff’s skull, pushing it deeper and more violently into the murky red pool. He laughed while he did this. His laughter derived from two pleasures: One, that the pesky police officer was about to die. Two, that his plan was almost complete.

  The man with the red shirt and the knife hid behind a tree and watched the campers bury the body.

  Watched and waited.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  “There. That’s it,” Scott said. He took a step backward and examined the grave, which was situated in heavily forested area roughly two hundred yards from the campsite. The burial mound looked like a regular plot of overturned dirt. A few rocks and roots poked out from the pile.

  Susan couldn’t believe how calm everyone was acting. As if this sort of thing happens all the time during a camping trip. You set up your tent, go to sleep, and then shoot a random hiker to death in the dark.

  What is wrong with them?

  “Okay, Scott. Let’s get out of here,” Susan said, pulling her parka tighter against the morning chill. “I just wanna go home.”

  “Go home?” Scott asked. “We can’t go home. We have to stay here tonight. We have to camp another night.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Yeah,” Jack added. “Susan’s right. Let’s just get out. Leave this place behind.”

  “No.”

  “Listen man,” Jack said. “It’s over. The camping trip is over. I fucking k—someone died out here tonight. It’s over. Let’s just go home and never talk about it.”

  “We can’t go home,” Scott said. “Jesus, Jack, are you that fucking stupid? We told everyone that we were going camping for the weekend. And now we have to go for the weekend. We can’t just come home after one night. People will ask what’s wrong—what happened? No. We gotta stay another night.”

  “No one is gonna ask anything, Scott!” Susan screamed. “We need to leave!”

  “No one’s gonna ask, huh, Susan? How about that cop? How about that fucking cop that was poking his nose around our shit when we were unpacking. We fucking told him our plans. We said we were camping for a couple nights, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

  The group grew silent. Susan looked around. The morning sun broke through the tree line and reflected off the lake in jeweled flickers. Birds whistled high in the branches. Two squirrels scampered up and down a nearby tree trunk. Susan looked at the broken beer bottles, the wine coolers floating in the lake, and the dead fire pit full of cigarette butts and an empty potato chip bag.

  This was a beautiful spot, Susan thought. Until we messed everything up. She looked down at the hump of fresh dirt. We messed everything up.

  “Okay,” Susan said. “I guess Scott’s right. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we have to stay.”

  They spent the rest of the morning cleaning the campsite, repairing equipment, and trying to relax. Jack and Kim took a hike before lunch. Susan wondered if Kim would have sex with Jack. It seemed likely. How could Kim screw at a time like this? Susan answered her own question: because she’s a slut.

  Kim hadn’t said a word all morning. Just kept her mouth shut, and now she was off having sex. Every guy’s dream, Susan thought, keeps her mouth shut and has sex. Susan allowed herself a little smile.

  She walked over to Scott, who was busy assessing the burned tent, determining which items were salvageable.

  “Hey, Scott.”

  “Hey.”

  “Some camping trip, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Scott laughed. “Not one of our better vacations.”

  “You seem like you have everything under control.”

  “Well, someone has to take charge. We can’t all run around screaming our heads off. That’s how you get caught.”

  Susan hesitated, then said it anyway. “You seem really calm. Like you almost don’t care that someone died. Do you care?”

  A flash of anger filled Scott’s face. “Of course I fucking care. I also care about us not getting thrown in jail.”

  “Did you even care about the accident in college when you killed that boy?”

  Scott smirked. “Who said it was an accident?”

  Chapter Seventy

  Kim had seen something, dammit. She’d seen something and nobody believed her. Last night, in the woods with Scott, she had seen a man with dirty black hair and a red shirt. Weird, strange eyes—like someone with brain damage. She told the group and nobody cared. Nobody believed her. Maybe the other events of the evening trumped her news.

  She had definitely seen someone.

  Kim thought about last night, as she walked down the trail toward the campsite, Jack in the lead. First, sex with Scott. It was fine. Just average, really. She thought of her private conversation with Susan the previous afternoon. Susan had said that Scott was sort of selfish. Kim could sense that by the way he made love.

  It wasn’t that Scott was really bad or anything. Kim had grown up screwing goofball freshmen from the local college. Now, some of those guys were bad. Scott wasn’t bad. It was just that he treated her like a thing, and not a person. An object. Sure, it was silly for her to lecture about sex and objectivity, as she’d certainly let herself be perceived as an object many times. This was different.

  The way he held her. That bothered her. Gruff, raw, like the way you’d carry garbage to the curb. And that choking shit! What was that? Was he really just trying to shut me up, for fear of Susan? Or was he trying to kill me? She played games in bed. All sorts of games. Last night had been different. She’d seen real anger in his eyes.

  She didn’t like him. Didn’t like any of them, really. Except f
or Susan. Susan was okay. It was a shame how Scott treated her. She wonder how Scott would react if Susan ever stood up to him. He’d kill her, she thought, and shuddered in surprise at her own conclusion.

  Kim returned to the campsite with Jack and found Scott and Susan napping in the grass. Jack approached the couple, but Kim walked away.

  She stood on the perimeter of the campsite, rubbed her injured calf, and stared into the woods. Leaves disconnected from trees and spiraled downward. Red shirt! There he is again! Red shirt! It’s the same man. Red shirt. Dirty black hair. Oh, my God! Kim began to alert the others, then paused. She didn’t want them to be a part of this. They had ignored her the first time. She never told anyone twice.