The shadow reached into the hole of Waylon’s chest, snapped off one of his ribs, and began sucking on the marrow.
“Oh God,” Zeke mumbled, the words barely more than a rasp, and the shadow heard him. It raised its head and turned toward him, revealing a face coated in mud and blood. Worms writhed through the thing’s greasy hair, feeling their way along the curve of its forehead and around the dried “o” of an old gunshot wound. The shadow crunched down on Waylon’s broken rib and cast its gaze upon him. Its eyes glowed, two sapphire orbs floating in the dark.
Zeke Billings met the living face of his nightmare and began to scream.
Jacob Masters flashed a grim smile. “My little lamb,” he rasped.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
Athin sheet of moonlight slipped through the open bedroom window, and Susan Prewitt stood in its brilliance, allowing the pale sheen to coat her naked body. Ozzie groaned in his sleep and tried to roll over, but his one hand was still cuffed to the bedpost, and he came to rest at an odd contorted angle, his head forward against his chest. A rolling snore erupted from his nose.
She looked over at him, frowning. How long, she wondered, would it take to choke the life from him? Or to simply suffocate him with a pillow? She played out the ensuing conversation in her mind: Why, officer, he was fine when we went to sleep, although he did snore quite a bit. Why, no, he never did go for that sleep study, but I kept telling him to do it. They say sleep apnea is a silent killer, but…
Another snore filled the room. The floor vibrated beneath her feet.
Maybe not so silent, she mused, feeling a sudden rush of warmth between her legs. She thought about rousing him from sleep and taking him for another ride, but the shots he’d downed at the bar already worked their magic. He’d spend half an hour trying to get an erection, and by then, she’d be asleep, the heat of her desire extinguished in cold, damp boredom. Ozzie Bell had that effect on her, and she idly wondered how such a big man who talked such a big game could be so goddamn dull.
With such a little cock, she thought, smirking. But even small things have their purpose.
The people of Stauford loved their talk, and she and Ozzie’s many nights out on the town were the subject of such chatter as of late.
The chief’s found himself a nice girl to settle down with—
Oh, but wasn’t she one of those poor kids from that church—
One of the Stauford Six, that’s right—
Maybe Chief Bell could do better, find himself a girl with less of a history—
Working at the Burger Stand, Susan was privy to all sorts of gossip, one of the reasons she’d held the job for the last six years. She was fascinated by how much a person could learn by simply pretending not to listen. The righteous Baptists of Stauford loved to talk. She figured their shallow hearts couldn’t contain all those secrets.
“Let them talk,” she whispered to no one, returning her gaze to the moon. Her confidante, a brilliant portal and guide. How many conversations had she held with the moon? Countless, surely, but she dared not speak her heart’s desires to anyone else in town, not even Ozzie. Stauford couldn’t keep its mouth shut, and the last thing she needed was to be branded a witch like Imogene Tremly. The moon would listen, though, and it wouldn’t judge. It watched over her, guiding her hand to do the deeds that must only be done in the twilit hours. Her father spoke to her through the moon’s unblinking eye. He told her secrets. He told her his plans. And she waited.
From the moon, her father told her to lay with the town’s chief of police. He will become your eyes and ears. He will be your shield. And like a good daughter, she had done so for months now, drinking Ozzie’s seed, opening herself up to him in places he should not go, just to appease her suitor.
From the moon, her father told her to desecrate the home of the heretic witch. Defile her birthplace. Defile where she rots in the earth. And like a good daughter, she drove to the hardware store and purchased cans of spray paint. She marked the old Victorian house outside of town, and later, Imogene’s gravestone. Except she’d heard the cemetery’s keeper found her graffiti and cleaned the paint from the chiseled granite. Susan drove out to the cemetery a few days later to finish her work, only to find Jack Tremly there, a sight which stunned her. He was the last person she expected would return. But no matter. She would continue to do what her father bade her.
From the moon, her father told her to wait. When all heretics rot and the moon is full once more, I will return to you, my daughter. We will build paradise upon this world’s ashes.
And like a good daughter, she waited, marking her calendar for the rise of the first full moon after Imogene Tremly was in the ground.
She waited, staring up at the white eye silvering her body, mind, and soul. A soft breeze rustled the trees outside and filled the room with cool air. Her skin bristled with gooseflesh, and her nipples hardened. She traced the moon’s place in the sky with her finger, forming the sacred half-circle in her mind.
A drop of blood plopped on the nail of her big toe. She looked down, wondering if she was asleep and dreaming this, but then another tear of blood fell.
Susan looked up at the moon, at her outstretched hand and finger, and noticed the half-circle of blood on her wrist. Blackened tears seeped out of her skin, following the inked marks of the tattoo she’d commissioned years ago. The symbol her father burned upon his face before the witch took his life. She stared in awe at the seeping wound on her wrist. Tears flooded her eyes.
I come again, my little lamb. I was and I am.
“You always will be,” she whimpered, freeing the tears as she sank to her knees. Blood trickled from her wound, dotting her thighs and hips, staining the floor in a Pollock painting of sacrifice and devotion.
Susan raised her bloody hand to the window in supplication. She smiled and said, “Your will and the Old Ways are one.”
The moon said nothing in return.
2
Nor did the moon say anything to Zeke, despite his pleas and screams. The shape of his father moved before him, blocking out the moonlight, and ran a dirt-caked hand through Zeke’s hair. He trembled at the touch, his skin crawling from the coarse texture of his father’s crumbling fingertips. His stomach churned from the musty smell of the grave, the stench of rot covered in decades of soil and ash, and twice choked back the bile threatening to spew from his gut.
Zeke’s mind ran circles around itself, questioning the reality of what was happening. His father was dead. He’d watched Imogene Tremly put a bullet in his chest, another in his head, watched her empty all her rounds into his father’s bleeding corpse. The grotesque scene had haunted him all his life, forcing him into an existence of sleep deprivation and depression.
And yet here his father stood, caked in mud and gore from Waylon’s steaming corpse. Zeke’s eyes filled with tears.
“Do not weep, my lamb.” Jacob’s voice was dry, raspy, a sound of weeds whispering in the wind and soil blowing in fallow fields. “Your friend gave his life willingly to the lord, a sacrament of flesh and blood.” He wiped his chin and smiled. “We have much rejoicing to do.”
Jacob gripped Zeke’s chin and lifted his head. Zeke forced himself to gaze into the glowing blue eyes of the thing that was once his father. Blackened worms clung to the revenant’s face, seeking the air in trembling gyrations as if sensing Zeke’s tears, his sorrow. Tasting his fear.
“But I must know, little lamb, what has become of our lord’s idol?”
Zeke didn’t have an answer, didn’t even know what the hell Jacob was talking about. His voice failed him, amounting to nothing more than a few choked expectorations. Jacob gripped his son’s cheeks and squeezed.
“Where is the idol, child?”
But Zeke couldn’t reply. Instead, he screamed until his throat was raw, crying for help that wouldn’t come.
Jacob Masters held his hand over Zeke’s face to muffle the sounds of his wailing, panicked child. Black worms writhed across Jacob’s flesh and
into Zeke’s mouth, his nose, his eyes. The world went dark, snuffed out like a match, but he could still feel the thick, pulsing things inching their way into his mind.
“You will help me find it,” Jacob said, running a blackened, bloated tongue across his charred teeth. “And we will build paradise together.”
Zeke said nothing, his mouth full of dirt and worms and a viscous gore tasting of oil and rot. But in his head, in the darkness behind his eyes itching with the sensation of clumps of crawling things, he said, Yes, Father. Let’s build paradise together.
His father smiled up into the moonlight, and the circular glyph in his forehead began to bleed.
3
“So, do you kids want to hear a scary story?”
Ben Taswell’s brother tossed another log on the campfire and grinned like a devil as embers sputtered into the night. The wavering dance of flames projected a shifting display of shadows upon his face. Ben thought Daniel looked like a madman in the firelight and found he couldn’t help but match his older brother’s grin. His smile faltered a little when he glanced at Riley and saw his friend wasn’t paying attention to the flames but was instead whispering something into the ear of Rachel Matthews. They were holding hands. Ben looked away.
The other kids in the youth group cheered, confirming a unanimous vote for scary stories around the fire. Dan Taswell motioned toward the flames. “Gather ‘round, then. I’ve got a really scary one for ya.” Daniel shot a wink to the other chaperone, Glenda Martin, another college kid home for the weekend. She took Daniel’s cue and shrank back into the shadows for a moment. When she returned, she held a small black bag in her hand. She gave it to Daniel before joining the group around the fire.
Ben leaned forward, trying to get his brother’s attention, silently projecting his curiosity. What was in the bag? Soon, he thought, they would all know—but being the storyteller’s younger brother often afforded him exception, and he wanted to be in on the gag before the rest of the kids.
If Daniel noticed the curious look on his brother’s face, he made no indication. Instead, he stuck his hand in the bag. The orange light reflected in his glasses, painting his eyes the color of Jack-O-Lanterns and Halloween.
“You ready?”
Their bellies full of s’mores and warm cocoa, the youth group of First Baptist huddled together around the fire and gave Daniel their full attention. All except for Rachel and Riley. They were sharing a quiet laugh with one another. Ben tried to get his brother’s attention, tried to avert Daniel’s gaze toward the young couple, but his brother was too caught up in his monologue to notice.
For an instant, Ben thought about ratting out Riley when they returned on Sunday. He was sure Reverend Tate would be none too pleased to hear his son spent the weekend making out with Rachel Matthews, but then his cheeks flushed with the warmth of shame. Not a way to treat a friend, a voice said. Not after he saved your life from Jimmy Cord this afternoon.
Ben sighed. He did owe Riley. The whole scene happened so fast—first Jimmy had him cornered, for reasons he couldn’t even remember, and then there was Riley with his lunch tray, and then Jimmy was bleeding and Riley was smiling and—
“Ben?”
He looked up, snapped from his reverie. “Yeah, Dan?”
“Pay attention, will ya? They’re paying me by the hour here.”
Glenda Martin chuckled at the line, but the other kids in the group remained silent. Ben nodded for his brother to go on.
“So, you know, there was a church out here once. Many years ago, before they built the dam down at Holly Bay. Did any of you know that?”
The children said nothing, but Ben found he could barely contain his excitement. He inched forward, willing his brother to continue. From the corner of his eye, he saw Riley was finally paying attention, but the grim look on his face spoke volumes.
“I expect you wouldn’t. Not many folks talk about it these days. Not many of them are left.” Daniel let those ominous words hang in the air for a moment as he pulled his hand from the bag. White powder slipped through his fingers and gave life to the flames, filling their circle with a whoosh of orange light. The children exchanged glances with shared awe.
Ben’s friend Toby Gilpin nudged his arm. He leaned over and whispered, “Dude, I didn’t know your brother was a magician.”
“Me neither,” Ben whispered, more to himself than his friend.
“The old church was a few miles from here,” Daniel went on. “Way out here in these woods, just off Devil’s Creek Road. A small group of Stauford folks used to congregate out there, and an old minister by the name of Jacob Masters presided over his flock with sermons of hellfire and brimstone—what my papaw used to call ‘old-time religion.’ Brother Masters built a whole community out here in these woods for his people to live, so they could worship how they wanted to without fear of people interfering.”
Daniel Taswell paused, more to catch his breath than for effect, and an owl hooted from somewhere off in the distance, giving some of the children a start. He cleared his throat and continued.
“Anyhow, word spread there was devil worship going on back here in the woods. People heard all sorts of stories about animal sacrifices, strange sounds and lights after sundown, chanting, people in robes. I was a young man when I first heard these stories, no older than you, Ben.”
All the kids looked at him, even Riley. Ben’s cheeks burned.
“Everyone knew not to go out to Devil’s Creek. Jacob Masters had a reputation in town for being a little off his rocker. So did the rest of his followers. His gospel wasn’t like what we teach on Sundays at First Baptist. Over time, the rumors kept building and building until, one day, some kids went missing.”
First Baptist’s youth looked amongst themselves with wide-eyed concern. Glenda Martin shifted in her seat and put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Daniel had them in the palm of his hand.
“One thing led to another, and before too long, the people of Stauford formed a mob. They drove out to Jacob’s church here in the woods, and do you know what they found?”
Ben leaned forward, waiting on the edge of his brother’s words. Toby did the same, as did the other children. The only one who didn’t was Riley, who now sat with his arms crossed, his eyes ablaze with an anger Ben had only seen once before, earlier that afternoon.
“They found the missing children—parts of them, I mean, hanging from the trees like wind chimes. The rumors were true, and the good people of Stauford had waited too long to act. They rounded up Jacob’s flock to take them back to town and try them for murder, but before they left, they set fire to Jacob’s church.”
“That isn’t how it happened,” Riley mumbled, but only Rachel and Ben heard him.
Daniel reached into the bag and pulled out another handful of white powder. In that moment, before his brother tossed the powder on the flames, Ben realized what it was: coffee creamer. He’d seen the canister packed in his brother’s bag earlier that day and wondered why because Daniel never drank coffee. A thin smile spread across Ben’s face as he watched his brother conjure another burst of flames from the pit. Daniel Taswell waited for the flames to settle. He licked his lips, measuring their faces before going on.
“The old man was locked inside when they set fire to the building. My papaw used to say the screams coming from inside the church weren’t from a man, but something else. Something inhuman. When there was nothing left but ashes, those who stayed combed through the cinders in search of Jacob’s remains—but they didn’t find them. Old man Masters vanished that day, but if you listen closely on cool autumn nights like this one, they say you can hear him screaming…What’s that over there?”
Ben’s brother shot to his feet with a jolt and cackled as the whole group of kids shrieked in horror. A moment of panic overcame them as they searched the shadows with fire-blind eyes, trying to find the shape of the evil Jacob Masters, killer of children. He wasn’t there, of course. Ben saw his brother’s ruse coming a mile away
, but he played along, feigning surprise before joining in the laughter.
“Very funny, Dan.” Toby looked back at Ben. “Your brother’s lame.”
“Whatever,” Ben grinned. “I saw you jump a mile out of your shoes.”
Glenda Martin clapped her hands. “All right, kids. We’ve got a long hike ahead of us in the morning, so you should all get some sleep. Come on, back to your tents. Let’s get some shut-eye.”
Riley remained while the children dispersed. Ben watched him say goodbye to Rachel, sneaking a quick wink before she trotted off with the other girls to their tents.
Daniel called out to him. “Hey Ben, help me put out the fire.”
He did as his brother asked, kicking dirt into the fire pit. The flames were almost out when Riley approached from the shadows.
“Daniel,” he said, “that’s not how the story goes.”
Daniel chuckled, shrugging off the criticism. “Come on, it’s just a story, Riley. Let’s get some sleep, huh?”
“Yeah,” Riley said, frowning. He caught Ben’s stare before leaving the circle. Ben thought he heard Riley say something else as he walked off into the darkness. It’s not just a story.
Ben’s pulse quickened from the implication, and he made short work of the fire pit, kicking up plumes of dust and dirt to mask the flames. With the last embers glowing in the dark of the forest, Ben doubled his pace to catch up to his friend so he wouldn’t have to walk alone.
4
Riley climbed inside their tent. He activated a small handheld LED lantern, filling the dome tent with a pale white light and waited for Ben to return. Daniel’s comment nagged him, taking small bites at his brain, filling his mind with an itch he couldn’t scratch.
It wasn’t just a story. At least, not how Riley understood it. He’d heard the spooky legends growing up. What child in Stauford hadn’t? Someone’s older sibling or cousin always spilled the truth, usually in hushed whispers with a feral sort of glee in their eye. Scary stories were primal things, passed on as warnings, but mostly—and Riley figured this was more truth than speculation—for the sadistic pleasure of scaring someone else with mere words. And like most scary stories, there was always a grain of truth to them.
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