by Glenn Rolfe
“All is quiet in the world tonight…” John muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a song. Where does your research lead us to the Caswells?” He was interested to hear just how much of what Soctomah thought lined up.
“Get this,” Pat said, the odd excitement exuding in his every movement. “The Passamaquoddy had a split with the ones that wanted to stay and fight and the ones that wanted to carry on someplace else. They knew the white man was not to be trusted, like, ever, so one of the fiercer ones, a shaman, was said to have put a curse upon the town and the land, like what you said.”
John nodded.
“Well,” Pat continued, “according to this book I found by a former local, a Native American writer, an Eden Silko, her book says the Passamaquoddy that stayed close were of a darker set of beliefs. A small tribe that practiced black magic.”
John thought of Dr. Soctomah’s devil shaman and his ambitions.
“Okay,” Pat said. “So you know what I told you about the Ghoul of Wisconsin, right?”
“Sure, local creep. Moved away, came home to kidnap and murder Ethan Ripley and went…what? Home to get caught and executed?”
“Right, that’s the CliffsNotes version, but I found a book by Emily Gibson, a true crime author, that dove deep into Caswell’s story. According to her book, the Ghoul never made it to the electric chair. He slit his own throat in his cell.”
“Fuck,” John said.
“He had notebooks filled with rituals and stories of spirit worlds. Like every Native belief in the spirit world, from what you see in the movies to stuff that would make Bundy and Dahmer look like Boy Scouts. According to Gibson’s book, one of the rituals that stood out above all the others was one by a Passamaquoddy shaman disliked by his people here in Maine. It talked about manipulating the spirit world. It involved sacrifice and blood and a clear, focused vision of the world you’d like to create. In the same chapter Gibson mentions passage upon passage in Caswell’s notebook about a place called Graveyard Land.”
Pat saw the air leave John’s body. “Just like in your dreams,” he said.
“Motherfucker,” John managed. Soctomah was right.
“What if he succeeded?” Pat asked. “What if he made his own grotesque spirit world, and that’s what this Graveyard Land is? That’s what he wanted. In the interrogation room, he referred to his yard at his home in Wisconsin as Graveyard Land. Where his boys were. Where he could keep them with him forever.”
“What the fuck does this have to do with me?” John asked.
“Dude,” Pat says. “Are you kidding?”
“What?”
“Shit, Johnny, maybe you are oblivious.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” John said.
“August,” Pat spat.
“What about him?” John felt the rage boiling up inside.
“Fuck, man. August, your dream kid, he represents Ethan Ripley. You can’t remember the kid. You blocked him out of your memory. You said August has blacked-out eyes and that it could mean you can’t see something or you’re trying not to see something, right? Your dreams are screaming at you to remember.”
“I….” John felt a wave of nausea roll through him.
He closed his eyes and turned away.
Run, do what you do best.
“No,” John whispered. “He would have killed me, too.”
“Holy shit,” Pat said. “You were there. You were with him. Did you see it happen? Think.”
John clenched his fist. Pat stepped back, giving John some space, but not backing down completely.
“I mean,” Pat continued. “It would explain why you choose not to remember him…the guilt, the tie-in with the Ghoul of—”
“Stop fucking calling him that!”
Pat took another step toward the door.
“He’s a fucking man!” John shouted. “A fucking sick perverted piece of shit. Do not glorify this animal with some catchy fucking nickname because you get off on these fucks.”
“Did you see it happen?” Pat dared him.
“Get the fuck out of here, Pat. Go home. Now.”
“Johnny—”
“And stop fucking calling me that!” John launched the beer bottle across the room. It smashed against a wall several feet from Pat’s head and scattered glass and beer to the floor.
“Sarah was right to leave. You’re a selfish fucking prick,” Pat said, tears welling up in his eyes.
He ran from the house.
“Pat,” John yelled. “Fuck. Pat, wait!”
His front door slammed shut. John rushed after his friend.
Pat was already pedaling like a bat out of hell from his driveway.
God, John thought, I really am a piece of shit.
Chapter Forty
Pat was barely two streets away from John’s place when the green Dodge darted across the street and clipped his bike. Pat flew over the handlebars and crashed to the tar in a mad tumble of pain, shock, and dancing stars.
He couldn’t move his left arm, and realized he was lying on it. Rolling to his back, he tried to get his blurred vision into focus. Someone was rushing over to him.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry,” the man said.
Pat smelled him before he saw who it was.
“Say, let me help you up,” Alvin Caswell said.
Only he didn’t try to help Pat to his feet; instead, the man snatched him by the hair and dragged him to the back of the van. Pat tried to push him away, but every part of him seemed to scream in refusal. He’d definitely fucked up his right leg and he thought his left arm might be broken.
Caswell picked him up and roughly dropped him in the back of the van. Then he climbed in behind him and closed the doors.
“Wait…no…” Pat whimpered.
Caswell had rope and a roll of duct tape. Pat tried to kick him with his good leg, but the man easily deflected the weak shot and punched Pat in the stomach.
“Ugghh,” Pat cried out. What little fight he had in him wheezed out with the air in his lungs.
Caswell bound Pat’s wrists and quickly repeated the move, cinching his ankles together.
“Puh, puh, please…let me go….”
“Sorry, buddy boy,” Caswell said. “You’ve been invited to the party. We need to make sure Johnny shows up.”
He turned away before returning with a dark-stained rag and the roll of tape.
“I can’t have you yelling for the cops. Now, open wide.”
“No, no,” Pat said, jerking his face away.
Caswell hauled off and backhanded him. More stars came out to waltz their way to this two-man show.
A truck rolled up behind them.
Caswell opened the door and stepped down.
Pat saw who it was.
“Mr. Fuller!”
“Hey, Caswell,” Fuller said, stepping from the vehicle. “You fat bastard, what the hell are you doing?”
Caswell forced the rag past Pat’s teeth. Pat gagged at the taste of oil and gasoline as Caswell taped the rag in place.
“Wait here, boy,” he said.
When Caswell turned to face Mr. Fuller, Pat saw the knife Caswell had hidden behind his back.
Wide-eyed, Pat yelled behind the gag, flipping out and flopping like a dead fish.
Caswell marched forward, meeting Fuller in two steps. His arm swung out.
“Get that boy out of your van or I swear to God I will – ugh—” Fuller stopped.
Pat watched Caswell pull the knife free and plunge it back in three more times.
NO!!!
Fuller collapsed into Caswell’s arms, drooling blood from his mouth.
“Come on, Fuller,” Caswell said, dragging him to the van and shoving him in beside Pat. “What’s the matter
, boy? Never seen someone kill a man before?”
Caswell smirked and slammed the doors closed.
Pat watched Fuller’s eyes zone out and that was it. He was gone. Tears fell as Pat heard Fuller’s truck rev to life and rumble forward.
A minute later, the truck fell silent, and the driver’s side door of the van opened. Alvin Caswell slipped in and started the vehicle. “Sorry about that, boy. I had to ditch the nosey bastard’s truck. We’re good to go now. Hold still back there, yeah?” The creep cackled as they began moving down the road a little way before pulling over and stopping again. Caswell got up, came to the backseat and stared down at Pat.
“He’ll come for you won’t he, boy?”
Pat couldn’t believe this sick fuck had just killed Mr. Fuller.
“Are you gonna cry or do you maybe want to kick my ass?”
Caswell reached for his face. Pat squirmed out of his reach.
“You play nice and you might get your chance.”
Caswell moved his large rump to the front of the vehicle, and they drove off, bound for the impossible.
Pat’s worst fear had come true. He was inside the van and was now a victim in the tangled web that only a few hours ago he thought was so cool to be a part of.
Welling up at his own ignorance and his inability to see this coming, he remembered what had happened.
Alvin Caswell had been waiting for him.
I’m so sorry, John.
Chapter Forty-One
The phone blared to life. John stumbled from the bathroom, hurrying across the room, nearly tripping over the coffee table on his way to answer it.
“Hello, Sarah?”
“No, John, it’s Trisha.”
“Trisha? Is everything all right? Is Pat okay?”
“Well, I’m probably being a paranoid helicopter mom, but Pat went to work early this morning – he’s doing some work for Edward Fuller at the cemetery – and I was expecting him home by now. He isn’t with you by any chance, is he?”
Shit. He never should have let him leave alone. Not after all the stuff they’d uncovered.
“Ah, no, he’s not. He was, here I mean. Just a few minutes ago. You just missed him.”
“Oh? Oh, good. Shoo,” she said. “I’ve just been worried. My anxieties are a little out of whack lately.”
John could sympathize.
“Listen,” he said. “Do you want me to go see if I can catch up to him? Give him a ride home?”
“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that. I’m sure he’ll walk through the door any minute. Thanks though.”
“Are you sure, it’s really no problem.”
“No,” she said. “You’re fine. Say, how’s Sarah? Is she home? I’d love to say hi.”
“Ah, no, she’s at the store. Grocery shopping. I’ll let her know you said hello.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Thanks, John.”
“No problem, Trisha. Oh…can you have Pat give me a ring when he gets home? I needed to ask him something.”
“Sure thing. Take care.”
“You, too.”
John had his keys and was out the door the second he hung up.
He wasn’t sure why he’d lied to Trisha. Maybe to ease her worries? Or to cover his own assholish ways? Sarah was not grocery shopping and Pat had left nearly half an hour ago. He definitely should have made it home by now.
John owed him an apology. He’d track him down and deliver it in person. Then he’d make sure he got home safe.
What if August got him?
He pushed the thought away. He wasn’t ready to give in to this macabre fantasy of Graveyard Land. Not yet.
Pat thinks it’s possible.
He’s a naive teenager desperate for this true crime angle to be legit. This shit was pretty coincidental, John would give him that, but rogue shamans, fucked-up death rituals, and a sicko’s version of a spirit world. No fucking way. He’d believe in Jesus walking across the Hanson Union River before giving credence to that nonsense.
Cruising down the road, he saw the old outlet road that led to the Ropes. It was an old swimming hole that he and his friends used to frequent. Hell, all the neighborhood kids went there at some point.
An old memory played in his head.
He’d been down there only once that summer.
And he’d brought Ethan Ripley to show him.
It took him forever to get Ethan to swing out on the rope over the water. The kid was scared of everything. Once he got in though, they had a blast. Ethan had told him he used to not be such a chickenshit. That he used to ride dirt bikes with his Uncle…Peter or Paul, one of those biblical names. An accident had injured the tendons in his…hand. Which is why it was so curled up and gnarly looking.
Dirt bikes…something about dirt bikes….
There was something important just beyond his reach.
The sandpits.
He told John he still had a Honda CR-80 dirt bike, and they could ride it sometime if they had a place to go. Said he couldn’t do jumps or ride like a daredevil anymore with his hand like it was, but that he still liked to putt around on it when he could.
That’s why they went to the pits….
And that’s when they saw the green Dodge….
A horn blared, startling him from his daydream.
John drove on and found himself following a familiar path.
He cruised downtown, past The Tap Room. He thought he’d seen August driving the van here last week. Continuing to Water Street, he stared at the kids milling about on the sidewalks in front of mostly vacant storefronts. There had been so much more here when he was young. The place always seemed to be buzzing with business and life. The card shop, the pool hall, Weigand’s Martial Arts studio, Greatest Hits record store, Spears Corner Fruit, which sold magazines and comic books along with other convenience store junk. He’d got his Jolt cola and Slim Jim rations there regularly before they went out of business. Had he ever been there with Ethan or was that after they closed?
Pulling up in front of the Spears Corner Public Library, he gazed across the road. A new brewery had taken up the space long ago vacated by the record store. Breweries seemed to be one of the only flourishing businesses around this part of the state.
John went inside the library, instantly hit with the smell of the place. Sarah was the one who came here all the time. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually set foot inside.
“Can I help you?”
A skinny guy with a bad mustache and glasses set down the pile of books in his hands and stepped to the counter to meet John.
“Ah, maybe. I’m looking for a friend of mine. His name’s Pat. He’s got a Mo—”
“Patrick Harrison?”
“Yes. Have you seen him?”
“Sure, he was here earlier. Is everything all right?”
“But he’s not here now?”
“I haven’t seen him come back. He’s not in trouble, is he?”
“No, I just needed to ask him something. Can you do me a favor and ask him to call his mom if you see him?”
“Of course,” the man said.
“Thanks,” John said.
He made a quick check of the library to be certain Pat wasn’t hunkered down unnoticed in a corner somewhere. Coming up empty, he stepped outdoors and stared across the street. Two burly guys with thick beards and beer bellies were talking at the door to the brewery.
John could close his eyes and still see the Greatest Hits logo on the window. It was that store where he spent the majority of his time down here as a kid. He could still hear Soul Asylum, Hole, Counting Crows, and Billy Corgan’s strange but beautiful voice croaking out an acoustic song about how he used to be a little boy.
The van crawled through his reverie.
Caswell.
Pat was right.
That day he and Ethan were biking around, he’d seen the van. He’d seen it more than once driving past them.
John got in his car and drove up Winter Street and took a left around the outskirts of the Spears Corner Common. Two large Catholic churches cornered the place. Next to the St. James Church sat a small cemetery. This one always gave John the creeps as a kid. He wasn’t sure if it was because it was across from the park or because it was next to the church. Maybe it was his irrational fear of churches given to him by seeing the movie The Exorcist when he was way too young. Whatever it was it seemed silly now.
Patrick wasn’t at the park, not that John had expected to see him here, but as he came around to Brunswick Avenue, John headed out toward the old sandpits.
The pits were about two miles up the avenue. He pulled onto the dirt road, stopped and stepped out of his car. The wind had picked up, and the storm was almost here. The clouds gathered like hands around a throat, growing darker to the west, closing in to suffocate the light from the sky.
He walked past the cheap metal pole that, according to the slanted sign, was supposed to keep out unauthorized vehicles. There was no one else here as far as he could tell, so he strolled through and walked to the edge of one of the larger sand piles. Instantly, he felt like he’d been punched in the guts.
The woods to his right…that’s where—
You ran.
You left him.
That day…John had been here. He and Ethan had come to scope it out, and when they were getting ready to leave the green van was here…and a man seemed hurt.
Chapter Forty-Two
1994 (2)
Llewellyn crept down Water Street in his trusty Dodge, making his third pass on the heavily foot-trafficked stretch that served as the epicenter of downtown Spears Corner. There were all kinds of boys and girls shouting and fussing, screeching joyous howls and cussing each other out, but there was only one boy he was hoping to see. Would he be out here today? If Llewellyn had to guess from the brief moment he’d seen him, the kid had the look of a loner. He was probably glued to a nine-inch television set in a back bedroom somewhere playing Nintendo. If he did have friends, Llewellyn pictured them to be the Dungeons & Dragons type, holed up in a basement rolling dice and swallowing buckets of Mountain Dew.