by Jim McKenna
An old man had pulled a rickety yellow Datsun mini-pickup truck alongside the county road, and was standing over my bike as I emerged from the corn and trees, smacking spider webs off my clothes with my hat. He looked up at me as I approached, and I smiled and waved as I drew closer to him.
“You’re not tearing up the lawn, are you?” he asked. I was put out by the immediate rudeness and assured him I was not. I told him I had seen this place many times, and wanted to take a closer look. I picked up my bicycle and walked with the old man towards his truck, and as we walked he got friendlier, seeming to assure himself I was not the deviant grass vandal he has assumed upon seeing me.
“The city gave us a lease on this strip of ground to land our planes. We need to keep the lawn smooth so the wheels don’t hit a hole and flip. It’s a good field to use. No wires around, no houses, and not much traffic.”
I asked him about the woods. “Ah, that place you can’t get into. Use to be a little nature trail the city set up to go in and see the water. The entrance was over there,” he said, pointing to a vague location somewhere along the southern tree line. “They had benches, in there, and I guess it was real nice.”
“You never went in?”
“Nope. This all was there fifty, sixty years ago, longer even. They stopped keeping it up and over time the trees and such just took it over. You can’t get in there. Hell if one of our planes crashes into that place we just think of it as gone. The ground is so thick you could hardly move.”
I took all of this in, and the old man, whose name was never offered to me and I never asked, slowly changed the subject from the woods to the model planes he and the others in his club flew. I decided to hang around for a little while when one or two more hobbyists - also old - showed up with their planes. One was so bent over it seemed impossible for him to get all the gear from the back of his van by himself. The planes were larger than I thought, with about a four foot wingspan. When one man got his plane fueled and into the air, I watched it fly it over our heads and out over the corn, but never over the woods. I did not stay for the others, but got on my bicycle and headed home. As I made the turn from the county road I looked back at the line of cars and the men huddled over their planes.
The man I had talked to was at the far end of the field still as a stone, watching me.
I was feeling a little more excited and curious about the woods now. I now knew there was indeed something to be found in there other than just a natural spring or well. At one time there had been a quaint little nature walk, maybe some place local couples visited during their courtships. I imagined what I might find in there now, and resolved to hack my way into the woods and uncover its secrets. I drove that afternoon to a local shop with camping and hunting supplies, and early in the morning two days later arrived at the courthouse parking lot and assembled my gear. I decided not to park my car alongside the road. For some reason I did not want to alert people of someone snooping within the trees, especially the local fly-boys. I hiked the distance to the woods slowly and at a relaxed pace, being careful not to wear myself out too soon. Once I got there I pulled on a pair of knee high rubber boots and secured the small backpack and adjusted the straps. Then after one last blast of insect repellent, and a quick check to ensure the little bottle of nitroglycerine tablets were in my pocket, I unsheathed my brand new machete and entered the woods like some half-assed jungle explorer.
I started my adventure by probing along the southern edge hoping to find the place where there had once been a trail. I had no luck finding such a point and so made my way in slowly and carefully at what seemed to be the easiest place. With machete in hand the trek was not as hard as I imagined it would be, and the boots and rugged outdoor clothing gave me a certain amount of confidence I lacked the prior visit. Within fifteen minutes I was deep into the wood, and the ground had noticeably started dipping downward to the north and east. The trees were packed so close together in some spots it was impossible to hack through them, so I did not even try. Instead I allowed myself to at all times follow the route of least resistance, hacking down a branch or two and stamping and scraping what I could of a trail as I progressed. At one point I came to a low rise with a small stone that served as a bench , and there I sat and rested for awhile.
Having lived my entire life in the deserts of the Southwest, the single thing I have had the hardest time adjusting to since moving to Illinois is the abundance of water, and the effect this has on the environment. Rivers, streams, and creeks abound, and the most amazing proliferation of plant life bursts out of the loamy, fertile soil. Around me in the dense woods was every kind of lush green plant, now turning in on themselves with the approaching autumn. Some of them were poisonous I was sure. Tall trees leapt up in a spreading canopy high over my head. Some trees were thick and gnarly, spreading massive limbs into the sky, while others, slim and narrow, shot straight up like graceful pillars, holding aloft great bushes of leaves that bent and jostled for sunlight in the high air. Each trunk was wrapped in vines, and surrounded by bushes large and small. The ground was thick with decaying leaves. Insects of all varieties thrived, crawling and flying amid the leaves. And cast about everywhere spread the gossamer geometry of spider webs, their owners sitting fat and menacing in the center of their traps or hidden away under a leaf, waiting. Once and maybe twice I heard the crash of what must have been a large mammal in quick flight, and I know somewhere in here lived raccoons, deer, foxes and other fauna that sometimes appeared at night among the nearby homes, their eyes shining in the artificial light.
The air was damp and cold when I started out again, and the sky through the treetops had turned an iron gray that threatened showers. I studied as best as I could the lay of the woods, and decided I needed to move in a more easterly direction than I had been if I was going to be able to locate the open glade I thought I had spied before. This made the going a little harder, as I had to cut through some pretty heavy places in order to keep moving in the right direction. Maybe another two hours had passed before the decision paid off. I pressed through a tangle of brush and out into the most open space I had yet seen, and immediately I knew the whole expedition had been worth the effort.
The grotto opened before me, surrounded by massive willows, oaks and maples whose thick roots searched their way down the stones to the water. It was a great cleft in the granite, about forty feet wide and seventy feet long, north to south. It appeared to be a jumble of enormous stone blocks of varied height, all gathered together like steps and ledges. Each of the blocks was encased in a green patina of lichen or moss, and some had tendrils of ivy and fern dripping down their sides to a shallow pool some ten feet below in a stepped slope. At the far north end the great rocks were piled at their highest, and between the bases of the stones little trickles of clear water meandered and splashed down green and gray chutes to the tinkling pool. It was an amazing site, and I wondered how a place of such sublime beauty could sit forgotten in the center of this nearly impenetrable wood.
I walked out onto the rocks carefully lest I lose my footing on the mossy surfaces, but found my footing to be strong. Behind the high pile of stones ahead of me I could now make out what appeared at first to be a steep hillock that looked quite unnatural compared to be designs of nature in the grotto. It was steep sided and very domed at the top, with a few young trees taking root at the top and sides. I moved forward, digging my digital camera from my bag and snapping pictures all around me. After one more picture I looked closely at the domed earth, and thought it looked like the Indian burial mounds dotting the forests and plains.
Then I looked down at the little pool and saw the great slab of rock in the center.
My first thought was this circular stone would be the best place to have my lunch. It sat right in the middle of the shallow pool, its top flat and slightly concave, its edges sharp and regular. Trusting my rubber boots I stepped into the shallow water and made my way to the stone. It was about eight feet in diameter, and stood about two
feet out of the water, which was there about two feet deep. The closer I got to the stone the stranger it appeared, with odd patterns in the moss and growth on its sides. I reached the great stone and looked closer. Yes, there was something etched into it, and in many different places. On the flat surface a deep ring had been clearly carved all along the outside, about eight inches in from the edge. And on the flat sides that I could see, there appeared to be large etchings. I counted the flat sides of the rock. There were eleven sides. It was clear that someone had carved and shaped this stone. I reached out to touch the side and wipe away some of the grime, and jerked my hand quickly back when the entire stone smoothly moved.
I reached out again and gave it a little push, and again the stone turned on a center axis, not unlike a merry-go-round in a park for little kids. The rock must weigh a couple of tons at least, and probably more, but I could easily move the whole thing using only one hand, with next to no effort at all. It was truly amazing. As the stone turned I looked closer at each of the eleven sides, taking pictures as I went. On each of the eleven carved faces was etched a kind of petroglyph. One was a three fingered hand, the next a bird with a long beak, after that a crescent moon, three matching circles, and a spiral bisected vertically with a straight line. I spun the stone slowly to make sure I had captured all the markings with my camera, then tucked it back in my bag and got ready for lunch. I looked all around me, absorbing this remarkable place and feeling like some kind of archeologist in a remote jungle who has made a remarkable discovery of an ancient and unknown world. I looked down at my feet in the water, and reaching in drew out a chip of stone. To me it looked like some kind of primitive axe head, with a thick edge chipped down to a thin sharp blade on the other side. Not only did it look man made, but down in the water there were dozens more of the stones, scattered on the pebbles. I tucked the one in my hand into my jacket pocket. This was getting better all the time. I chuckled out loud and shook my head, and laughing more reached down and gave the great disc of rock a huge spin. It whirled quickly and without sound in the water, releasing a swirl of ripples that spiraled out from the center to the edges. I felt a little dizzy as my eyes tracked the ripples, and I caught one mini wave in my vision and followed it out to the stony edge of the pool, where it splashed into the little white feet of the girl.
I screamed aloud and jumped backwards, falling into the water to my waist and gasping with the cold. Her flesh was corpse white, her hair thick and black, her eyes green as the leaves of the woods and fierce. Her blue-black lips quivered and danced over flinty white teeth, and I could hear a sound in my head like a voice, but only part of one, as if I were trying to find a distant radio signal that flickered and danced on the airwaves. She wore a dirty white cloth around her waist and nothing else, and the stark whiteness of her body was like the marble of a statue. But unlike a statue she moved, and she came towards me, stepping easily and without effort over the rocks, her steps through the water soundless and without a single ripple. My heart hammered my chest as the ghost drew close to me, for I knew this was not a pre-pubescent girl but a thing, a spirit haunting this wood, and I knew no more of why or how save my desperate desire to flee for my life. I fell back in the water again, and before I could rise she was upon me. Her face had changed. The rage in the eyes of what should have been such a pretty face was gone, and replacing it was an expression of deep sorrow. She reached a hand out to me and I felt the cold wet flesh touch my head, and I heard somewhere in my mind the piteous words from deep inside her:
We are lost. All of us. Take us home.
Again I screamed, this time turning and scrambling through the water to the high stones, but now there was only madness the likes of which I had never heard of, much less seen. I struggled to my feet, and looked around in terror at the grotto, now turned into a scene of charnel horror.
All around me, the fragile bodies of young girls and boys writhed in torture and agony. Many were tied to trees, their flesh flayed from their bodies in ragged wet strips. Some hung on hemp ropes by their necks, their legs kicking the empty air. Others struggled and writhed on the ground, pulling themselves along with broken and horribly bent limbs. A boy, his castrated groin gouged and bleeding, pulled himself from the water, his eyes bulging out from under a split open and empty skull, pouring spring water like a diabolical pitcher.
And still the little girl followed me, speaking high pitched and terrible words into my mind as I struggled to get my feet under me once more, and I saw her eyes leaking black tears in torrents from her pleading eyes. I scrambled to my feet and ran into the trees, but dizziness and blinding pain assailed me. A great weight of pain dropped hard on my chest, and I tripped into the brush and fell. My head swirling, chest heaving, I rolled onto my back, and the last thing I saw were the terrible faces of two little girls suspended above me by their feet, the blood from their horribly gashed throats and silently babbling lips splattering on my face like warm summer rain until I could see no more.
When The Event struck me down, I died not once but twice. For me there was no sound of loved ones around me, asking me to come to them or remain among the living. There was no white light, or promise of a beyond. My deaths were just an end, a fast and final halt to everything that is this world. In a split second within a split second everything was gone. It all happened so very fast there was not even the realization that death had taken me at all, and I know that had death not been fought back there would have been nothing but the blackness of non-existence. I found out later of the multiple zaps with the defibrillator, and how as I was flat-lined then and there for close to a minute. Death stole in so quickly there was not even a moment of terror, only the pain of my return to the living, breathing, fearful world, clinging to rags of my life suspended over the abyss of oblivion.
I had a shard of a memory to cling to after my visit to the wood. It was of an EMT leaning over me, and a gloved hand pulling an oxygen mask over my face. How I got from that horrible scene of blood and terror to the small Grogan Mills hospital I have no memory at all. I slept most of the day, and in the afternoon it was decided the planned transfer back to the cardiac hospital was not needed. I would be observed overnight and allowed to go home. A nurse who lived a few doors down from me brought me a dinner tray destined to remain untouched, and she gently stroked my arm as we talked. She said it was a lucky thing I was found in the early morning hour at the courthouse, and she asked where I thought I might have picked up all the cuts and scrapes. I told her I did not know, blaming it on the corn stalks. Then it occurred to me what she was saying. I had been brought to the hospital at 5:30 AM. But my last recollection was of finding the grotto in the woods at about noon. Was I not thinking of that horrible spinning stone as a place to eat my lunch? Then came the girl, and all those horrible images that must have been – had to have been – nothing more than frenzied hallucinations. But there remained the question of the long hours between those times; a huge gap I had no recollection of at all. I lay there in the hospital thinking of that and many other things.
Jake Mather was one of the first men who befriended me when I moved to Grogan Mills. It was evening when he arrived, and the hospital was silent. He was younger than me my about ten years, and built like a mountain, possessing an admirable physique he kept up with every kind of athletic activity. Jake brought a little plant in a vase and a get well card and placed them on the table beside me. It was good to see him, and we talked for awhile, about this episode and of the heart attack I was still recovering from. Jake was a client I had done some contract work with, and his wife, a local real estate agent, had brokered the purchase of my home. In the time I had been in Grogan Mills I had become used to the small town connections and coincidences. Jake’s father was on the board of the hospital.
“So you think you’re going to make it?” he asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I just need to remember not to push it. A little at a time.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully. “You think you just pushed yours
elf too hard and passed out?”
I was silent for a moment. “I think so.”
Silence dropped over the room, and lingered there for a minute or so. I could see his blue eyes studying me in the semi darkness. His head nodded up and down slightly on his thick neck. Suddenly, Jake clapped his hands on his big thighs and bounded from the chair. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Betty and I will be looking in on you.”
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” he said, smiling. He looked into my eyes. “We don’t want you getting into any more trouble, do we?” he added. The smile was still on his face, but in his eyes there was now something darker, something colder more felt than seen. “You can stay out of trouble, right buddy? You know how to do that, right?”
I stared back at him from my bed. And nodded slowly. “Sure.”
“I knew that. We all know that. Now get some rest, okay? And If you ever want to go hiking I know some good places. Real good places. When you’re healthy again we’ll check them out together. That’s a promise.” And with that he was gone, just the lingering scent of his aftershave and a quiet threat hanging in the air, solemn and cold as a grave.
The same dream I’d had at the other hospital months ago settled in on my sleep, those spinning stars through the trees. But this time I felt the cold of the stone on my bare back where I laid, and the stone was spinning in the sacrificial waters of the grotto.
I awoke and juggling the rolling IV stand made my way to the bathroom. I shut the door and pulled the johnny off me and looked at my back. Long scrapes etched their way across my back and buttocks, and it looked to me as if I had been dragged by a team of horses over the rough ground. When I turned around and faced the mirror I froze. Under both armpits were deep blue bruises.
