Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  Riley’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. One night in the woods had reduced him to a terrified child, his imagination gone wild with impossible fantasies of teenage love and boogeymen in the woods.

  And now, his best friend Ben was missing. His only friend, really. He didn’t know Toby all that well, but the boy’s absence stung just as much. Yet another boy lost on account of Riley’s recklessness.

  As for Rachel, well, he’d probably crossed the line. He could say goodbye to whatever “it” was between them. Even if she’d reacted differently, even if she’d kissed him back, Riley’s father would’ve put a stop to any sort of relationship. It was bad enough Bobby Tate thought his son snuck out to have pre-marital sex, but the look of disappointment on the man’s face, the pure disdain he projected toward his son when he picked him up at the campground earlier that morning, made the bile churn in Riley’s gut.

  “I thought I raised you better,” Bobby said, and Riley sat in silence during the long car ride home. Riley leaned back on his bed, plugged his ears with earbuds, and shut his eyes, replaying all the things he wanted to say to his father but didn’t have the energy to do so.

  Nirvana’s plucky acoustic cover of “Lake of Fire” filled his head as exhaustion finally found him. He slept dreamlessly, restfully, until a knock on his door roused him from the dark. Riley opened his bleary eyes and found his aunt Stephanie standing in the doorway. She smiled and crossed the room, taking a seat beside him. Riley pulled the earbuds from his ears. Stephanie took one and put it in her ear.

  “This is a great album,” she said. “I prefer the Alice in Chains acoustic set, though. Have you heard that one?”

  Riley shook his head.

  “We’ll have to fix that,” Stephanie said, removing the earbud. She lifted his phone and paused the music. A long sigh escaped her lips, and Riley saw she was working her way toward something. “Your dad told me what happened.” She smirked. “Well, his side of what happened. I’d like to hear more about it from you, though. How’re you holding up, kiddo?”

  He turned away from her, rolling to face his pillows and a framed photo of his mother on the nightstand. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “I hope you know I’ll be here when you do. If you want me to be.”

  Riley looked back and nodded. “I know, Steph. Thank you. I think, right now, I just want to sleep. Can I call you later?”

  “Of course you can,” she said, and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead. “I’ll be at the station this evening, but you’re welcome to join me if you want.”

  He smiled. “That would be awesome.”

  “Cool,” she said, rising to her feet. She walked to the corner of his room where his desk stood. An assortment of posters clung to the wall—mostly bands like Ghost, Opeth, Tool, even one for Black Sabbath—but what caught her eye was one of Riley’s prized possessions: a print of his uncle Jack’s Midnight Baptism.

  “Did you know Jack is in town?”

  Riley perked up. “He is? Seriously?”

  Aunt Stephanie nodded. “Got in yesterday. I’m interviewing him at the station tonight.”

  “No shit,” he whispered.

  “No shit.” Stephanie grinned. “So, what do you say I swing by here later, we go grab a bite to eat, and then you can meet your famous uncle?”

  “I’d love that, but…” Riley’s face fell, remembering the deep shit he was in with his father. “I’m not sure Dad will go for it. He’s kind of pissed.”

  Stephanie ruffled his hair. “Let me take care of that. He may seem scary to you, but I grew up with the guy. Trust me, he’s a pushover.”

  “Thanks, Steph.”

  “Any time, kiddo. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Stephanie left the room. Riley grinned, and for the first time in weeks, the weight on his heart lifted. Stephanie always treated him kindly, recognizing he wasn’t like his dad and nurturing his darker interests. Most of the music he listened to was because of her, and even his interest in his uncle Jack’s art—a man he’d never met, and probably wouldn’t have known existed had it not been for his aunt—sprang from listening to Stephanie talk about it in passing.

  Riley wasn’t sure what it was about Jack’s art he found appealing, whether it was the dark subject matter or the vivid portrayal of such horrible twilit creatures, but despite its macabre nature, he found himself drawn to it. The first time he saw Midnight Baptism, he knew he had to have a print of it, his father’s protests be damned. His mom was still alive then, and she’d ordered the print for him without his father’s knowledge. The dark scene hung on his wall for months before Bobby Tate noticed, but by then, Janet Tate had fallen ill and there were more pressing things to stress about.

  He closed his eyes and pushed those troubling memories out of his mind. After a few moments, sleep found him again, but this time there were other things waiting for him in the dark. Their sharp teeth glowed in the impossible light of an unseen moon above, and somewhere in the shadows, his best friend Ben was screaming.

  10

  Ben Taswell was screaming, but no one heard him—no one who cared, anyway. He was in a musty cave of some kind, with a thin curtain of morning light piercing the center of the dark. A rickety ladder descended from the ceiling to a pillar near the edge of the shadows. The ground beneath him was dirt and something fine, like sand, but when he ran his fingers through it, he discovered there were bits of stone in the mix.

  And the smell—God, the smell was awful. A wet and moldy stench of rot, like the time he’d forgotten to empty the grass clippings from his dad’s lawnmower. The smell was pungent enough to make him retch on the spot, and now, as he lay sprawled on the dusty floor of this cavern, he felt his stomach churning once again.

  Don’t, he told himself, but the cramps in his stomach were terrible pinching things, like fists clenching his insides. Colors swam before him, and a low droning bell sounded in his ears as the churning intensified, working its way up from his guts and into his throat. Ben was struck with terror as he realized the moldy stench of the cavern was inside him. He tasted it, the fetid offal of time and the earth, decaying in his mouth, his throat, his guts.

  Ben cried out into the dark, but his voice was silenced by his gag reflex, and he tried to choke back the awful sludge seeping up from his throat. Panic seized him when he realized the phlegm was creeping out his nose as well. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and saw a thick streak of black sludge smeared across his skin. It was moving, writhing with startled life like worms driven to the surface by the pattering of rain.

  “Oh God,” he cried, wiping his hand in the dirt, trying to clean himself of this awful thing.

  “God,” a raspy voice said, “is not here, child. But I am, and I can take your pain away.”

  Panicking, Ben clamored to his feet, but a ripping agony tore through his insides. He doubled over and fell hard to his knees. Thick ropes of the black sludge dribbled from his lips and pooled on the ground beneath him. Shaking, his eyes alight with bursts of shimmering color, Ben looked up toward the halo of light above. There was a man peering down, his face draped in shadow, his blue piercing the dark.

  “H-Help me,” Ben pleaded, but the figure turned away.

  “I can help you, child.”

  The raspy voice was closer, and Ben turned toward the shadows surrounding him. At first, he saw only the dark, his eyes blinded by the sunlight from above. Shapes swirled before him, phantoms conjured from the fear gripping his mind. He tried to move, but his muscles cried out in agony, the pinch in his stomach closing a little more.

  Footsteps now. Steady footfalls, crunching over the shards of stone in the sediment.

  “My god is a living god, child, and through me, he speaks. The way to salvation is through suffering. Anything else is a lie. Your little head has been filled with these lies since birth, child. These walls around us show a simpler way, a way of truth. These Old Ways were written long bef
ore the God of lies took root in this world.”

  Jacob Masters emerged from the shadows and took Ben’s face in his hands. The colors swimming before the boy’s eyes cleared, and for a single moment, he saw with total clarity the monstrous face before him. Shimmering eyes illuminated the cracked visage of a dead man, his flesh a moistened mess of rot and age. Tendrils of the black sludge sought the air from holes in his face, and just before Ben’s mind finally cracked from the weight of this impossible horror before him, the boy glimpsed his friend Toby approach from beyond.

  “It’s his will,” Toby said. “His will and the Old Ways are one.”

  A wrenching pain tore through Ben’s chest, forcing a wheezing cry from his throat. It’s got me, he thought. The boogeyman’s got me. I’m sorry, Daniel. I’m sorry, Mom and Dad. I’m s—

  Jacob Masters placed his palm over Ben’s face and squeezed. “Suffering is the way to salvation, my child. You are not quite there yet.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1

  Jack slowed alongside a large wooden mailbox with “BOOTH” printed on its side in dingy white letters. He parked behind a beat-up red minivan in the driveway. The van’s back bumper was blemished with rust and dented at both ends. A slender crack stretched across the left corner of the back windshield, accented by a religious decal along the lower edge of the glass. “He is Risen!” it read.

  Jack sighed, and for the first time since leaving Stauford, he questioned what he was doing here. His grandmother must’ve had this person’s business card for a reason, but why? Did Mamaw Genie have a secret passion for anthropology?

  The only person left who could answer that question was Dr. Booth himself, but Jack’s doubts almost got the best of him then when he spotted the sticker in the van’s window. He knew the sort of people who sported slogans like this one. He’d been haunted by them his whole life. His grandmother lost her eye trying to save him from people like that, an act which earned her the derision of an entire town, harassment in the form of men wearing white sheets, men who came in the middle of the night to set fire to her yard. They were the sort of men who hid behind their religious convictions, spouting scripture that suited their views. They were men who believed they were doing their lord’s work.

  Those cowards had sons and daughters who ridiculed Jack and his siblings, and in some ways, the wounds from their jabs and insults never healed. Not for Jack, anyway. He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror, replaying all those nasty things they’d called him in school. Even the teachers regarded them with caution and contempt. They were living reminders of Stauford’s dirty secret.

  He realized he was white-knuckling the steering wheel. They called us the Stauford Six. The cursed Devil’s Creek kids.

  Wasn’t the constant ridicule and stigma the reason Mamaw Genie told him to leave and not look back? “This place ain’t for you,” she’d said. “When you finish school, don’t come back to Stauford, honey. You and me, we both know there ain’t nothin’ left for you here, Jackie. Your whole life you’ve been hurt by this place. It’s time you go heal now.”

  “But what about you, Mamaw?”

  “I’ll be fine, darlin’. My work here isn’t done yet, Jackie.”

  He remembered trying to ask her what she meant, but she’d changed the subject, asking him to go get her a glass of iced tea.

  He’d grown up hearing his grandmother was a witch, a devil worshiper, an enemy of God. Their ridicule never made sense to him—Mamaw Genie was one of the kindest people he ever knew—but looking back, he wondered if there was a shred of truth to those awful remarks. He thought of the cryptic symbols in his grandmother’s notes, the glowing idol in her desk. Hell, he thought, maybe they were right.

  “Only one way to find out,” he sighed. He gathered his things, climbed out of the car, and walked toward the front door. Along the way, he noticed small figurines positioned in the adjacent flowerbeds. They weren’t lawn gnomes, as was typical in most suburban neighborhoods. These were wooden, crudely carved animal figures with rudimentary features. Jack was about to kneel and get a closer look when someone said, “They’re protective totems. Made them myself.”

  Jack looked up with a start. A stocky old man with thick-rimmed spectacles stood in the doorway, his thinning white hair slicked back over a patch of bald skin. He crossed his arms.

  “Help you with somethin’, son?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. At least, I hope so. Are you Dr. Booth?”

  “Who’s askin’? You a salesman?”

  Jack extended his hand. “No, not a salesman. I’m Jack Tremly. I think you knew my grandmother. Or maybe she knew you, at least.” He gave the old business card to the professor.

  Dr. Booth took the card and examined it. “I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. My teachin’ days closed up with the college, and…” He locked eyes with Jack. “Yes, son, I knew your grandmother. Briefly, anyway. I’m guessin’ by the look in your eye that you’re taking up her quest.”

  “Her quest?”

  The old professor pursed his lips and frowned. “Right, then. Come on in, son. I’ll put on some coffee, and then we’ll talk.”

  2

  Ozzie Bell sat behind the wheel of his cruiser, watching Officer Gray speak with a pair of park rangers while another squadron of officers combed the campsite. They’d let the kids go a few hours beforehand, but not before he’d taken his turn grilling the Tate boy over the disappearance of his tent mate. Ozzie knew all about the kid, knew he was already in hot water with Ronny Cord’s son, and he’d taken pleasure in watching the young punk squirm. What was it the kid said? One of the suspects had glowing eyes?

  Sure, he could buy Riley’s story about sneaking out with the Matthews girl, but he couldn’t buy the glowing eyes bit. Maybe one of the suspects had glasses. Maybe the light was reflecting off the lenses.

  “Bullshit,” Ozzie muttered, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel. A few droplets of rain pattered against the windshield, and he craned his neck to look up at the gray blanket of clouds rolling overhead. His men had ground to cover today, and the last thing he wanted to hear was bitching and moaning about having to walk in the rain. Never mind the matter of tracks being swept away in a downpour.

  And there were tracks. He watched Officer Danton photograph what they’d found in the grass leading toward the tree line: two sets of footprints, one deeper than the other, with a trailing pair of trenches scraped into the ground. Chief Bell recalled the boy’s statement. One man carried someone over his shoulder. The other looked like he was dragging something. Logic dictated those trenches probably belonged to a pair of heels. Whether it was the Taswell boy or the Gilpin boy didn’t matter; what mattered to Ozzie Bell was where those tracks were headed.

  There were miles of forest in that direction. Hundreds of thousands of acres, as a matter of fact, if what he’d heard from one of the rangers was correct. A whole lot of nothing but mosquitos, deer flies, and undergrowth between here and the Cumberland River.

  His phone buzzed with a text message alert. He glanced at it, saw the message was from Susan, and put the phone back on the console. He was on to something then. Something sharp, sticking out of his brain, exposed enough to stumble over, and—

  Susan sent another message. Ozzie paused, clicking his tongue. Devil’s Creek Road wasn’t too far from here. Maybe a few miles in the same direction as those tracks, but a half-hour drive to get there thanks to the winding rural access roads, little more than gravel-strewn paths snaking through the wilderness.

  Chief Bell honked the horn and gestured to Officer Gray. A moment later, Marcus trotted over to the car.

  “Yeah, Chief?”

  “Going for a drive, Marcus. Don’t fuck anything up while I’m gone.”

  “You got it, sir. You can count on—”

  Ozzie closed the window and started the car. He checked his messages. Susan wanted to know how the investigation was going. He typed a quick reply—“In progress”�
��and threw the cruiser into gear. Gravel and dust spewed from the tires as he turned the car around in the cul-de-sac.

  Minutes later, he was back on Rural Route 1193, heading south toward the Cumberland Falls Highway.

  3

  Fifteen miles east, Jack Tremly sat in Professor Booth’s kitchen, stirring sugar into his coffee. Professor Tyler Booth took a seat across from him at the small kitchenette table. The furniture was far too small for the large room, which was decorated with various masks and carvings of native origin. From what he’d seen, the whole house was decorated in similar fashion. A pair of long tribal spears were mounted on the wall above Booth’s television, accompanied by a series of framed photographs from various sojourns across the world. The man in those photographs looked younger, more vibrant, and more importantly, he looked happy.

  The fellow before him now had not aged gracefully. Large bags clung beneath his bulging eyes, dark spidery veins burst across the bridge of his nose, and the left corner of his lower lip was cursed with a nervous twitch.

  “I’m sorry, by the way.” Dr. Booth folded his hands together and placed them on the table. Jack looked up, confused.

  “Pardon?’

  “Your grandmother,” Booth said. “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t find out about her passing until several days later, so I couldn’t make it to the funeral. I’ve been meaning to pay my respects, but I don’t get down to Stauford much these days.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said. He sipped his coffee and swallowed hard. “I appreciate you saying that. I…wasn’t able to make it to the funeral myself.” He met the professor’s gaze and frowned. “Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’m honestly not even sure what I’m doing here.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Booth said. “I’d be confused, too.” He gestured to the worn notebook, its cover tattered and frayed, stuffed with a variety of notes and newspaper clippings. “I didn’t know Imogene well, but I still thought of her as a friend. She had a kind soul. So, if I can help you solve a mystery, then I’m happy to do it.”