Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  What if something’s wrong with the kid? What if he needs your help? What if—

  Somewhere ahead, twigs snapped in the brush.

  “Riley?”

  The dark swallowed his voice. He waited, counting to five before calling the boy’s name again. Something crackled in the breeze.

  You dumb shit. You should’ve been paying attention. Ah, fuck it. This is ridiculous. We don’t have time for hide and seek, kid.

  He gathered his wits and trudged forward, following his flashlight toward the shack, trying not to think of the blue-eyed shadows that mocked him years ago. Imogene’s ominous warning rang inside his thoughts like a fire alarm: Your father is near.

  The hollowed corpses of his former home fell into view, spotted with rust and choked with weeds, ivy. Chuck tried to force Imogene’s words out of his head, but as he drew closer to the boy’s flashlight, he found he could no longer silence them. Riley’s light sat perched on the roof of the makeshift meth lab, pointing in the direction of the clearing.

  He called the boy’s name again, frowning at the trepidation in his voice. The forest said nothing in return. Chuck reached out, took hold of his nephew’s flashlight, and was about to turn back when plodding footsteps caught his ear. A figure raced out of the dark, struck him in the shoulder so hard he nearly spun like a top.

  Disoriented, Chuck fumbled with the flashlight, the beam darting among the tree trunks and empty shacks until he found the silhouette backing away down the path. Riley’s face was pale in the white light, his eyes wide with terror. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and he was trying to say something between gasps of breath.

  “Riley, what the hell?”

  “Chuck…” the boy stammered. “My dad…coming.”

  His blood ran cold as Riley’s words sank in, and when he turned to look back down the path, he saw the source of his nephew’s terror. Four pairs of glowing eyes approached from the shadows, so close Chuck smelled the stench of rancid earth, sweat, and death.

  Time slowed, the air thickening to molasses, and a single thought raced through his mind before they were upon him: Slow ‘em down.

  He reached for the handgun tucked into his waistband, pointed it into the air, and fired a single shot. Riley cried out in surprise somewhere behind him, but Chuck could not hear him over the ringing in his ears. The first pair of eyes stepped into the beam of light, revealing his brother Zeke’s distorted face. Thick black worms protruded from Zeke’s nostrils, a dark fluid streaming from his eyes.

  Chuck didn’t think. He fired again, blinking at the force of recoil. The shot went wide, ricocheting off a nearby tree with a dull crack. Zeke Billings closed in, gripping the gun barrel, his flesh searing from the heated metal.

  As his corrupted brother’s hand fell over his face, Chuck Tiptree shrieked his final words into the darkness, hoping his nephew could hear him. “Riley, run like hell!”

  5

  Riley ran as fast as his aching legs would carry him. His heart raced, his head light and fuzzy from a day without meals, but still he pushed on while his muscles screamed for him. So stupid, he told himself, the words echoing a mantra in his head to the pace of his frantic heart. So damn stupid. And he was, falling victim to the most cliched action this side of a slasher film: he’d heard a noise, and without thinking, gone off to investigate.

  Someone whispered from the forest. Hushed voices overlapped one another, like radio chatter played asynchronously, filling out the still spaces all around him. And then a familiar bluish glow caught his eye in the dark, but this was different, hovering higher among the trees.

  Afraid of calling attention to himself, he’d placed his flashlight on the roof of the meth lab, waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and crept on ahead into the shadows. By the time he’d reached the center of the village, there were more than two eyes hovering in the air. Dozens, maybe, although he’d had no time to count.

  A naked woman emerged from beyond one of the shacks, her pale face illuminated in the glow of her eyes. Three men followed her. One of them looked like his father. Riley turned, caught his foot on an exposed tree root, and stumbled with a shrill yip. He didn’t know if they’d heard him, didn’t wait to find out, but when he’d regained his footing and raced back toward the beam of light, he heard the soft shuffle of legs rustling through the overgrowth behind him.

  And then he’d collided with Chuck, and—

  Two gunshots thundered from the dark.

  “Riley, run like hell!”

  His uncle’s words chilled him to his core, flooding his veins with adrenaline and regret. He wanted to turn back and try to save Chuck, but his mother’s voice spoke from within. Keep running, go as fast as you can, you can’t help him. Chuck’s gagging cries filled the night.

  Tears clouded his vision as he raced from the forest and up the hillside. His muscles burned while a sharp pain stabbed between his ribs, every breath like fire in his lungs, every movement another spike driven deeper into his joints. Stephanie nearly trampled him when he collapsed at her feet. He reached for her, panting for breath, the tears flowing freely down his burning cheeks.

  “Riley? I heard gunshots, what’s—oh God.”

  The darkness surrounding the edge of the forest converged, flowing like water between the trees, lit up with the occasional blue eye like fireflies dancing through the air. Four figures emerged from the trail.

  Stephanie knelt beside him. “You okay?”

  Riley shook his head. “I’m fine, but…” He forced himself to look her in the eye. Her face was glassy through the tears and the sweat, and he all but choked on the word clinging to the inside of his throat. “Chuck.”

  The boy didn’t have to say any more. Stephanie frowned, averting her gaze to the figures standing at the foot of the hill. The world ceased its spin, the air still and heavy, while above the moon and stars judged them silently. At the bottom of the hill, the forest was alive with the sentinels of their father’s buried god, the very shadows stretching into gaunt figures towering over creation. They stood among the trees, regarding the trespassers with silence, their eyes shrouding the hillside in sickly light.

  Jacob Masters broke away from the group, walking a few steps up the hillside path. He held the idol before him, a talisman burning bright with an impossible flame.

  “My darlin’ lambs, you ain’t got nowhere to run. Why fight the eternal? We only want to share the rewards of salvation with you. All that must be done is sweet suffering in the belly of God.” Jacob turned back toward the path. A pair of shadow sentinels parted, and Chuck Tiptree wandered into the clearing. His eyes glowed.

  “Amen,” Chuck cried.

  “Amen,” Susan Prewitt said. Zeke joined her, as did Riley’s father. When he heard his father shout hallelujah, Riley’s gut twisted into a knot.

  “Come on,” she whispered, helping him to his feet.

  “Where are we gonna go? Where can we go?” His voice cracked as he tried to swallow back a sob.

  “Inside the temple,” she said.

  “Inside?” He stopped, but she pushed him along, looking back over her shoulder. “I thought we were gonna blow it up?”

  But Stephanie didn’t say anything, and when he looked back, he saw the dark silhouettes advancing. Riley sucked in his breath and raced after his aunt, wondering what the hell they were going to do, and too afraid to ask.

  6

  This is all wrong, Jack thought, stepping off the final rung of the ladder. His grandmother wasn’t anywhere to be found. She’d climbed down here twenty minutes ago, promising to “get things ready” as they pushed the propane tanks down the shaft. Now she wasn’t answering him, and he was alone in the gloom.

  He looked down from the earthen pillar where the ladder was extended, marveling at the eerie blue flames flickering along the sconces built into the stone walls of the temple. Shadows danced across the surface, filling in the etched carvings of his father’s so-called “Old Ways,” lending them the almost animated qua
lity of crude cartoon strips. A cluster of propane tanks were scattered across the ashen floor. Up above, he thought he heard the distant crack of gunfire, but the sound was muffled, fleeting.

  “Steph?”

  She didn’t answer. His heart raced, and the worst memories of his childhood rushed back in a flood of dripping shadows. He remembered his father dragging him down here, landing in the pit of dust and bones, and fracturing his arm in the process. His arm ached now when he thought about it, along the length of his radius, an old wound that never truly healed.

  But long before that fateful day, he’d been down here plenty of other times. Times he’d locked away in the back of his mind to protect himself, to protect his sanity. Staring down the chiseled stone steps from the earthen pillar, he remembered his mother dragging him by the hair while he kicked and screamed in protest, remembered the icy fear coursing through his young veins when he first laid eyes on the bones of other children who’d gone before him. Those bones were still here, half-covered in ashen earth. The jawbone and fractured orbit of a child’s skull peeked from their home in the dirt. Hello, that broken grin said, won’t you join me?

  The echoes of children’s screams haunted this forgotten place. He felt their presence with every breath, their unseen eyes watching from beyond this mortal veil, the gravity of souls pressing down upon him, constricting his chest, pushing on his heart.

  Jack realized he was holding his breath and exhaled a loud rush of air. All around, the flames shuddered and danced, welcoming him home. The shifting shadows afforded him glimpses of the Old Ways etched into the stone walls, crude glyphs and runes arranged in patterns that made his eyes hurt. A dull throb emerged in the center of his forehead, and he forced himself to look away.

  He was struck with an odd thought, watching the shadows dance across the floor. This is where I was born. Maybe not in a physical sense, but the soul of everything he’d become was birthed from the womb of this cavern, and he found he wanted nothing more than to burn it to the ground.

  When he reached the bottom of the steps, Jack saw prints in the dirt, scattered between the shallow graves of those who’d gone before him. Toward the center of the room was the stone altar on which the idol once sat, its surface still stained with the blood from his father’s exit wounds. A mound of dirt sat off to the side of the altar, surrounding the hole where Jacob was buried.

  A curtain of shadows parted before him, driven away by a pair of flickering sconces, illuminating an opening in the wall. The breach expunged a gust of sour air, sweeping back his hair, and twisting his guts with its awful stench.

  Bare footprints led toward the mouth of the tunnel. This is where Mamaw must’ve gone, but…this is impossible. The air inside wavered as though with heat, yet he felt nothing but a chill emanating from the rift. There was a grim light at the far end. Like the moon. But that can’t be. I’m underground. I’m…

  Home, a voice spoke from beyond the opening. You are home, child.

  Memories assaulted his mind, biting and scratching their way free from the mental graves in which he’d buried them, harsh ghouls eager to devour his sanity. He remembered his mother carrying him down this passage, the hem of her robe dragging the earth with a soft slipping sound. There was the rancid smell of compost and decay, the breath of a living god that was ageless, nameless, forever. And beyond the corridor, there was a sound of water churning against stones. Tides, maybe, driven to shore by a moon—or was there more than one? Surely there were more. He remembered ill light everywhere, bright enough to illuminate their actions, but it was always shifting, changing, moving to follow them like the gaze of eyes.

  Countless eyes. Eyes forever, watching us, guiding our parents to do those awful things. A million eyes in the sky like stars in the cosmos.

  Jack remembered the congregation standing at the shore, their faces wrapped in shrouds while his father walked with him into the shallow waters. He remembered the warmth of the liquid, but it wasn’t water at all. It was thick like old motor oil, reeking of dirt and something else, something he couldn’t place. Something ancient, older than time itself. Something alive.

  I will baptize thee in the name of our lord, Jacob said, and Jack remembered looking up at his father with wide-eyed wonder, proud to be a part of something greater than himself. Proud because he knew no different. And when you are ready, your blood will sate our lord’s hunger, and from that great feast a new day will dawn when the scripture of the Old Ways will be known once more.

  Jack stared slack-jawed down the corridor before him, his eyes wrapped in tears, his heart racing so hard his chest ached. All his worst memories, the endless nightmares, were now beckoning to him in the flesh. The place of his baptism was beyond this impossible passage, an anomaly of space that could not exist, leading toward some other place where the moon was alive, the stars were eyes, and the only light was gifted by the god that birthed it.

  He wanted to turn and run, to leave everyone behind, race back through the forest to the car, and drive as far away as he could. All his courage drained from him while he faced down the path to his fate. I can’t do this, he told himself. I can’t. I can’t—

  “Jack!”

  The ladder rattled from above, and he saw Riley and Stephanie descend from the surface. The boy let go, skipping the last few rungs and landing hard on his feet; his aunt followed a moment after, and together they raced down the stone steps to meet Jack in the center of the room.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s Chuck?”

  Riley stammered, blinking tears away while Stephanie shook her head. “They’re here, Jack. And Chuck’s…”

  His sister’s tears finally came, and Jack closed his eyes. The strength left his body, his muscles suddenly jelly. “What about the gun?”

  Stephanie’s face fell as she reached to her waistband. She raised a trembling hand and covered her mouth, shaking her head in disappointment. “I must’ve dropped it. I can’t—fuck, I can’t believe I did that.”

  It’s okay, he wanted to say, but there was no time for consolation. He looked back to the opening, praying to whatever was listening that his grandmother was somewhere in there, praying she could save them.

  A voice spoke from above, filling the chamber with a roaring echo that flooded his heart with ice water. Jacob Masters peered down from the opening, his cool blue eyes shimmering in the dark.

  “My little lambs. I’m so glad you’ve all come home.”

  Jack didn’t wait. He took Riley and Stephanie by the hand and led them toward their only exit. The corridor shimmered before them with hungry anticipation, and from the other side, a guttural chirr erupted as if in laughter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  1

  Their flashlights lit the way before them, revealing a floor alive with vermin of the earth. Worms and other insects writhed over every surface, slithering and crawling along a slow tide of the black liquid seeping from the other end of the corridor. The stone walls were covered in a shimmering membranous film like windows in the rain. A smell of salt punctuated the stench in the air.

  “How can this place be?” Stephanie’s dry voice echoed across the narrow chamber.

  “We’re underground,” Riley said, squeezing her hand. “Why is there light? Do you guys see that?”

  “I do,” Jack said, catching Stephanie’s stare. “We’ve been here before.”

  An uneasy silence fell over them as they walked cautiously along the squirming floor. The air was alive with a low hum, filling Stephanie with a mounting dread she could not escape.

  I’ve been here, she thought. This is where it happened. That son of a bitch tainted us here. Raped us here. Wanted to kill us here. A chill spread across her neck and down her back.

  Chuck’s voice echoed from behind, filling up the cavern with the bellowing resonance of her name. “Steph, you can’t run from us. Trust me, it ain’t so bad. I promise. All you have to do is suffer.”

  Jack put his hand on her shoulder, urging her forwa
rd. “Don’t look back. Trust me, okay?”

  She did trust him, but the impulse was too great, an almost instinctual reaction to do the very thing he’d told her not to. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw their father standing in the mouth of the tunnel, his bare feet dragging across the dirt as he hovered above the floor. Susan stood at his side, her naked body caked in blood and black filth. Above, Zeke crawled along the ceiling, insectile in his movement, and her stomach lurched when she realized his eyes were suspended from his skull. Bobby joined him, walking along the ceiling on all fours, his stained tie hanging down like a limp antenna. Oh my God, what happened to them? What—

  “Steph.” Chuck appeared from behind their father, knelt at the old man’s feet, and proceeded to crawl along the river of worms. He slipped his hand into the squirming current, lifted a handful of dirt to his mouth, and swallowed. When he was finished, Chuck looked at her and grinned. “We can be one with the Old Ways, Steph. A little suffering and it’s done.” He slurped a plump earthworm between his dirt-caked lips like a strand of spaghetti. “Will you suffer for your lord?”

  Stephanie turned away, her broken heart aching as she pushed Riley forward. All around them, the tunnel shimmered and writhed, its stone masonry giving way to a bulbous, fleshy growth seeping dark ichor from its pores.

  This isn’t a tunnel. It’s a throat, and we’re being swallowed.

  2

  I’ve seen this before. In Jack’s painting.

  Riley froze when they stepped out of the tunnel onto a rocky shore. A cold dark tide seeped forward, rolling over the toes of his sneakers, stealing his breath. Riley stared across the desolate landscape, feeling a bizarre sense of déjà vu as his gaze fell over the stones, the flat monument rising from the dark waters before them, and the veil of darkness cloaking the horizon. Millions of stars twinkled down upon them, filling the grotto with a sickly light, forcing shadows to crawl and dance before their eyes. In the distance, the half-lidded eye of a pale moon hung among the starry expanse, its surface featureless and smooth, a cosmic bulb suspended from a formless abyss.