Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  3

  The city of Stauford disappeared behind them as Chuck sped down the Cumberland Falls Highway, its burning buildings obscured by rolling hills and the tops of trees. Smoke rose above the tree line in thick tendrils. Straight ahead, the sun drifted toward the horizon, painting the path before them in shades of orange flames and long, drawn shadows.

  Stephanie leaned against the window and listened to her brothers conspire in the front of the car, grateful she’d let Jack ride shotgun. Riley sat with his head on her shoulder. His fingers twitched, his breath a slow whistle through his nostrils, and she shifted her arm to cradle him against her in comfort. Hell of a day you’ve had, she thought.

  She tried to remember what she was thinking that morning when she awoke, if she had any idea what sort of nightmare awaited her today. Her apartment was probably nothing but ashes at this moment, all her clothes, her art, her vinyl. Gone up in smoke and cinders like her dream job.

  Her heart dropped into the pit of her belly. All the photos of her grandmother. The ones hanging on her walls, countless others in shoeboxes in her closet and under her bed. The loss of her radio station was a huge blow, but nothing compared to the loss of those few good things she wanted to keep from her childhood. Stephanie took a breath and buried the desire to cry, but the tears remained, lingering at the edge of her vision.

  God, she wanted a cigarette. She hadn’t smoked in nearly five years, but the urge to take in the smoke and calm her nerves was palpable. Instead, she tried to find her spiritual center, a place to soothe her worry and reassure her everything would be okay. But it wouldn’t be. There was no way it could be. Even if they made it out of this alive, what would be left for them?

  She’d locked up every cent she had in the radio station and the restaurant, and while they were paying for themselves, she wasn’t exactly rolling in the dividends. And then there was Riley. The poor kid had no one left except for her. Janet Tate’s parents were back in town, their minds probably crawling with black worms.

  Riley’s breath hitched, and he uttered a low moan in his sleep. Stephanie leaned over and kissed the top of his head.

  You’re all he’s got, her grandma Maggie reminded her. Stephanie smiled. She remembered the old lady’s constant nagging after Stephanie finished college. Steph, when are you gonna find a nice man and have a couple of kids? You should be thinkin’ about settlin’ down. And she’d always put her career first, always told Mamaw Maggie she was too busy to have a kid, when the truth was she was terrified of raising a kid in Stauford. A small town like this ate children alive, and she’d promised herself years ago she’d never raise a kid here.

  Now Stauford was a burning trash heap. She supposed there was some poetic justice in that.

  And yet there was something about the place she found alluring despite all the scars she’d endured—and not all of them were formed exclusively in the depths of Calvary Hill.

  The halls of Stauford’s schools, in the classrooms where she’d heard the gossip, the laughter and snide looks, the antagonizing notes found in her locker, and cruelty of false friends all did their part to carve lines into her soul. Those false friends wounded her most, and she’d done more than her share of cutting lines into her arms out of hesitation, trying to psych herself up and end it already, because that’s what a crazy cult kid would do.

  She looked at the tattoo on her wrist. A trio of roses with bleeding thorns hid the ribbon scars in her flesh. Mamaw Maggie treated her to the tattoo when Stephanie was seventeen, proudly signing the consent form at the parlor in Landon. You can always start over, Maggie Green told her later, when her skin was on fire and glistening with fresh ink. Now, later, it don’t matter, honey. You can always start over. Here or a thousand miles from here, it don’t matter. You make your future. It’s yours. Take it.

  Stephanie looked down at Riley, her heart swelling for the first time since they’d left the burning city behind. You can always start over, she thought, brushing the boy’s dark hair back from his face. We just have to make sure we have a future first.

  Jack pointed at a road sign up ahead. “There.”

  They turned off the highway, and Stephanie caught a glimpse of the road sign. Her blood ran cold. The sign read “DEVIL’S CREEK RD.”

  4

  The sun had vanished behind a curtain of smoke by the time Jacob was finished with her. Even in her ecstasy, the pain was so intense Laura was sobbing uncontrollably by the end, and she recoiled from him like a wounded animal. Their coupling severed the final link in her sanity, dropping her mind into an abyss. She curled up against the car, staring vacantly at bloodstains on her hospital gown. Jacob stepped away from her, tucked himself back into his trousers, and wiped his chin. The taste of Laura’s blood lingered on his tongue.

  His children were with him now, standing among the crowd at the bonfire on Main Street. Dearest Susan, a true keeper of the faith even after all these years, stood naked with her brothers. Zeke held his arm around his sister’s bloodstained shoulder, and behind them both stood Bobby, former practitioner of the heretical faith. Jacob stopped before them, looked them over as a general would his troops. He took Susan’s chin in his hand. She sighed, smiling.

  “Father.”

  “My little lamb,” he said, tracing his finger along her cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d arrived?”

  “We didn’t want to interrupt, father.”

  “Nonsense.” He pressed his rotten lips to hers. “You should’ve joined us.”

  A black tear rolled down his daughter’s cheek. “I’ve missed you so much. I never lost the faith. I prayed to our lord, and I heard you calling to me. I did everything you asked.”

  “I know, my lamb. I know. You did good, darlin’. You made your daddy proud.” He turned to Zeke. “I’m proud of you both.”

  “Thanks, Papa.”

  Jacob looked to Bobby Tate and frowned. “I can’t say I’m proud of you, child. You took up the mantle of a false god while the grave held me.”

  “I was wrong, father. I’ve renounced the faith of the heretics. There is only your will and the Old Ways. They are one. Forever.”

  Jacob lifted his chin, peering at Bobby with a hint of pride. “I knew you’d see the light, boy.”

  Susan leaned her head against Zeke’s shoulder. A sliver of earth dripped from her right nostril, followed by a plump worm. The invertebrate fell on the asphalt with a sick plop. “What do we do now, Daddy?”

  “We rebuild the church, darlin’.” He looked back to the cars where Laura sat crying to herself, cradling the idol of their lord in her lap. “We finish what was begun when you were all just babes. We finish the sacrament…starting with the blood of the damned.”

  Jacob went to Laura and took the idol from her trembling hands. The stone effigy burst into flames in his palm. He willed himself free of the earth, pulled into the air by the power of his god, and hovered above the bonfire once more. For as far as he could see, naked bodies writhed and squirmed over one another down the concourse of Main Street, tirelessly copulating in a parted sea of flames.

  “No more,” he said, and they obeyed their savior. From the next street over, the sing-song worship of Stauford’s youth overpowered the stark silence on Main Street. Jacob lorded over them like the avenging angel his father only dreamed of being.

  “The path of the Chosen is gilded in fire, forged in blood, and patterned across the bones of the damned.” He lifted his free hand to the air as he’d done every Sunday morning, marching back and forth along the length of the pulpit. “Do you love your lord?”

  The people of Stauford raised their hands. “Yes!”

  “You’ve all suffered for your salvation, but I ask you, brothers and sisters, would you die for your lord?”

  They fell to their knees, supplicants to a darker will, their minds crawling with an infection of the earth, their hearts writhing nests of blackened worms. “Yes!”

  “Would you walk into the fires of Hell to make amends f
or your sins? Would you rend your flesh and carve penitence into your bones?” He raised the burning idol and willed his lord another sacrifice. “Would you feed your soul to God to sate His hunger? Would you?”

  “Hallelujah,” they chanted, rising to their feet once more.

  Jacob smiled. “Then I beseech you, brothers and sisters, would you prove your devotion?”

  “Amen,” they said, thousands of voices echoing down the fiery chamber of Stauford’s last living artery. “Your will and the Old Ways are one, Father Jacob.”

  One by one, the people of Stauford willingly strolled into the flames of their burning city. They did not cry out in agony, but instead sang the old hymns of the church. “Give me that old-time religion,” they cheered amidst the crackling hellfire, their flesh bubbling, blackening, slowly peeling from bone. “It’s good enough for me!”

  Behind the bonfire, Laura Tremly climbed to her feet, steadying herself against the open car door. Blood trickled down her legs, causing her hospital gown to stick to her thighs. She shuffled slowly to the edge of the bonfire, raised her hands to the flames, and slowly walked into the heat. She caught Jacob’s eye as she threw herself upon the pile of cinders.

  Jacob watched her burn until her body was ash. I love my god more.

  5

  Imogene approached the clearing, now little more than an overgrown hill sprouting from the wilderness. The flagstones they’d used to mark the path up the hill were still there, shrouded in tall weeds, and several of their torch holders remained, jutting from the earth like broken bones.

  When she was a little girl, her father told her stories about the woods outside of town, how they were haunted by living shadows. As an adult, she thought her father’s stories were just that: stories told to scare a little girl from wandering too far away from their home. Now she knew the truth, having witnessed the shapes haunting between the trees, a void given form and presence.

  She stood alone in the clearing, listening to the absence of sound. Here there were no crickets, no chirping birds, no call of cicadas or locusts. The void was here, all around her, and with the insight gifted to her by the grave, she finally understood the stories of her childhood. Shadows dripped from the limbs of the tallest trees, folding in upon themselves as they skirted away from the failing light, watching her from beyond the safety of the forest. Their eyes shimmered, their voices like waves crashing upon a shore, and from deep within the earth came a vibrating hum.

  Welcome home. Your lord has waited so long for your return, child.

  Imogene steeled herself, took air into her dead lungs out of impulse, and marched forward through the overgrowth. The earth moved before her, alive with skittering insects and other vermin, driven to the surface by the hum from within. Black worms reached up from the ground like earthen cilia, slipping along her ankles. Ants crawled over one another, joined by centipedes and beetles, forming a writhing river of carapaces and limbs all the way up the hill. They crunched underfoot as she made her way to the summit.

  What do you hope to accomplish, child?

  “Your end.”

  The earth grumbled and shook with a low chortle of dissonant voices, the sound of many screaming as one, mocking her purpose, her drive.

  There is nothing for you here, child. My son has won. Your journey is for nothing.

  The insects were drowned by a viscous sludge seeping up from the soil, forming a black river oozing down the hillside like a lava flow. Imogene walked among them, feeling the tickle of insects squirming along her skin as the sludge anointed her feet. She’d felt this once before, long ago before Jackie and the others were born.

  You remember the Old Ways. Once you have seen, you cannot unsee, you cannot unknow. Your lord is with you, always.

  A slow-motion movie reel of heated regret, embarrassment, and hate flashed before her. Pastor Jacob had called a special sermon. They’d all arrived to discover the church aglow in lamplight, their faithful pastor sitting at the pulpit, his clothes caked in dirt and sweat. A massive hole was torn open in the center of the church floor, the pews pushed away, with tools and piles of earth scattered about.

  “There’s a temple below us, my lambs. A true temple of our faith, and on its walls is a testament far older than the one I’ve preached to you every Sunday. I want to show it to you, if you’ll let me.”

  She mouthed his words silently as she walked the black carpet of sin leading her up the hill, recounting the moment she made her greatest mistake. She chose silence in the face of Jacob’s madness like everyone else, and the decision cost her Laura, almost cost her Jackie, and in the end, it cost her life.

  Oh, child, you came so willingly into my temple.

  She lowered her chin, staring intently at the top of the hill. Yes, she’d followed her friends down into the temple below. Yes, she’d listened to Jacob spout the teachings of a new scripture. And in her heart, she wanted to speak up, to shout down his madness and wake her friends from this horrible spell he’d cast on them all, but—

  Your fear was so delicious, child.

  Imogene closed her eyes. She was terrified as Jacob’s devotion transformed into obsession, and later, into pure madness. By then, she’d given nearly everything to his cause—her life, her daughter, her reputation—all in the name of a god she was too frightened not to believe in. Not for fear of divine retribution, but for what might happen to her here on this plane of existence. When Jacob made his intentions known among the community—

  “The Old Ways demand innocent blood be spilled upon our lord’s altar.”

  —she’d finally found her voice, rallied the few sane friends she had left, and stood against him.

  She opened her eyes and carried on.

  When she reached the summit, Imogene surveyed the church’s foundation. Here, the liquid of the abyss dissipated, seeping back into the ashen pit, leaving behind the trampled weeds, rotted timbers, and cracked foundation stones. Someone had left a sign to warn others about the opening in the ground, but it lay on its side now, its bright neon pink letters obscured in the tall grass. A series of ruts in the earth led away from the opening, revealing where her adversary emerged. On the far end of the old foundation, she spotted a blood-soaked hand protruding from the weeds.

  Imogene recognized him, had seen his face in the newspaper more than a handful of times for various arrests. Possession, mostly, or the occasional DUI. Waylon Parks’s reputation was widely known across Stauford, one of the bad apples from the other side of Moore Hill. Last she’d heard, little Ezekiel had fallen in with this low-life. She examined his bloody face, forever frozen in a twisted agony of terror, and the cavern of his chest cavity.

  Jacob was hungry, she thought, thankful to have been spared from such desires. She did wonder, though, if more time in the grave would’ve given her an unearthly appetite. Her two weeks were nothing compared to Jacob’s thirty-plus years.

  The earth shivered beneath her feet.

  You have come all this way, child. Would you come further and pay tribute to your lord? Let us commune.

  She turned from Waylon’s corpse and approached the tear in the earth. A soft halo of light pierced the darkness below, illuminating the rungs of their old extension ladder. Down there were the bones of countless innocent children, sacrificed at a stone altar to appease a nameless god, joining a sculpture of worship as part of a dark tradition that went back for centuries. Others tried to contain this place, sealing it one brick at a time, covering it with earth as they covered their dead.

  They sealed it, she realized, because they couldn’t destroy it.

  The thought troubled her, and doubt needled its way into her mind. Her resolve was stronger, her faith unshaken, and she threw off the shackles of fear attempting to root her to the earth.

  Imogene descended the ladder, taking one rung at a time. This time, she hoped, would be the last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  1

  Riley snapped awake when Chuck cut the BMW’s engine.
He sat up, bleary-eyed and panicked, his heart gearing up for a marathon. Fading fragments of a dream still hung before him, slowly transitioning into the car’s leather seats, the two men sitting in them, the dense row of trees beyond the safety of the windshield, and the concerned, curly haired lady sitting next to him.

  “You okay, Riley?”

  “Yeah,” he told her, wiping a slick film of drool from his cheek. He looked at her shirt sleeve, saw a dark spot in the fabric, and blushed. “Sorry about that.”

  “Not the first time I’ve been spit on. You were sleeping so well, I didn’t want to make you move.”

  “Thanks.” He rubbed his eyes and peered out the window. The sun set behind the trees, filtering between them like jagged slits of fire, and fireflies rose from the tall weeds at the road’s edge. He tried to remember the dream he was having, but all he could recall was something about shadows and eyes. Especially the eyes. Blue orbs hovered in the dark, peering at him from some great cavern, and whatever they belonged to was calling his name.

  “Looks like we aren’t alone.” Chuck pointed straight ahead. There was a pickup truck parked near the end of the gravel turnabout. Its windows were open and its driver was missing. “Do you think it’s your grandma?”

  “No way of knowing until we get there.” Jack turned in his seat. “I’m guessing neither of you ever came back out here?”

  “No way,” Chuck said. “Those years when we were kids was enough for me, man. You couldn’t pay me to come back. I mean…” He looked out the window, shook his head. “This place hasn’t changed at all. Christ, not one bit.”

  Stephanie sighed. “I did. Once. I was home from college for a weekend. My roommate, Lizzy Warner, talked me into taking her to see where it all went down, so I brought her out here to shut her up. We got as far as the shacks. I wouldn’t go farther than that.” She looked out the window to her right, where the overgrown trailhead disappeared into the forest. “I’m still not sure if I can.”