by Alex Bledsoe
“Not exactly. See, old Samuel Geesey and his two brothers murdered Locksley Durant, but were never brought to trial for it. Had something to do with a swindle over a mule ol’ Locksley sold ’em. Even back then, everybody figured one less Durant was a good thing. But it ate away at Samuel’s soul, the idea that he’d murdered someone. So he wrote to the nearest Catholic priest, over in Knoxville, I think. Said he’d pay for it if someone built a church he could go to. So the priest happily took his money, and then actually spent some of it building a chapel of ease, instead of a regular church. Old Samuel went there all the time until he died, but he never managed to see a priest or confess his crime.”
That didn’t quite mesh with the other stories I’d heard, but I guess details could get lost, changed, or just made up over time. I looked at the old chimney and said, “How long ago was that?”
“I’m not sure. Quite a while.”
We continued on through the woods, up and down, around and through, until I was so thoroughly disoriented, it felt for all the world like we were headed back to the truck. I got my second wind, though, so I had no trouble following C.C., and even overtook him in a couple of places as the hike wore on him.
Finally he stopped again, took a moment to catch his breath, and said, “See that hill just ahead? The chapel is right over that. We’re coming to it from the same direction the Durants did the other day.”
I looked behind us nervously. “So this is how they’d always come?”
“Oh, hell no. This was the longest way possible. But I figure if they did come, they’d take the short route. This way we’d most likely miss ’em.”
That made sense. C.C. opened the bag I carried and handed me a bottle of water. I gratefully drank, then passed it to him.
He said, “Remember the plan. When we get there, we dig as fast as we can, and whatever we find goes into the bag. We’ll have plenty of time to look at it once we get back to the Parrishes’.”
“Okay.”
He took out his cell phone and dialed. After a moment he said, “We’re ready. Where are you? Okay. See you later. Have fun.”
I pulled out my own phone but, as usual, had no signal. “Who’s your carrier?”
Before he could answer, we heard the faint, distant sound of a loud, powerful engine. “That’s Doyle, getting the Durants to chase him,” C.C. said. “Come on.”
We moved fast now, and apparently without worrying about any noise we made. At the bottom of the gully, we splashed through a small stream, then climbed up the hill. At the top, we emerged into the chapel clearing.
The stone edifice stood out just as it had before, almost glowing in the moonlight now that my eyes were fully adjusted. I remembered how it had looked from the air, like a beacon for lost souls. We stopped again and listened for movement, but heard nothing beyond the usual night sounds and the distant, faint roar of Doyle’s engine, now accompanied by a second one. It appeared that the Durants had taken the bait.
“You have a flashlight?” I asked C.C.
“In the bag.”
I felt inside and found it.
As we reached the break in the wall where the door used to be, we heard a distant, loud whump. It was hard to tell direction with all the hills and mountains, so we looked around for the source. Then C.C. said, “Look.”
I followed his gaze. A faint spot of bright yellow and orange could be seen coming from a distant gully, barely visible through the trees.
“Is that Doyle?” I asked.
“Or the Durants,” C.C. said. His voice was hollow; I knew he was thinking about how Doyle had been involved because he, C.C., had asked him.
I’d never heard a vehicle—or really, anything—explode in real life, so I had no real idea what I’d heard. But it had to be serious to carry all this way, and it sure wasn’t difficult to imagine a truck skidding off one of these roads and down the side of a mountain, and bursting into flame when it hit bottom.
In the moonlight, C.C.’s face was tight with worry.
“It might be somebody else entirely,” I said.
“Not up here.” He dialed a number on his phone, but I could tell from his response that no one answered.
We watched as the glow continued. Whatever was burning was in no hurry to stop. I said, “What do you want to do?”
“Dig up what we’re here to dig up,” he said.
“If we need to leave—”
“If it was him, we can’t help him now. If it wasn’t, it’s none of our business.”
So that was that. We went inside the chapel walls. Something scurried away in the loose leaves piled up by the wind. I shone the flashlight circle on the ground where the secret was buried.
I said, “C.C., do you think this is wrong?”
“What? You’re worrying about that now?”
“Well—”
He grabbed me by my shirt. “I don’t give a fuck if this is right or wrong, Matt. We’re here now, and we’re going to fucking settle this. The time for second thoughts was back on the porch, not now.”
I’d never seen him angry, and it brought me up short a little. I said, “Okay. Sorry.”
He released my shirt. Then he grabbed it again, and kissed me. “Me, too. I’m a little tense.” He released me a second time and said, “You hold the light. I’ll dig.”
“No, it’s my place.”
“How many holes have you dug in your life?”
He had me there. “Okay.”
I kept the light shining on the ground, although the urge to watch C.C.’s muscles as he worked was pretty strong. I also tried to listen past the shuck-shuck sound of the shovel, for any sign of someone approaching.
Then the metal blade loudly clanked against something solid.
I held my breath as C.C. reached into the hole and pulled out a rock. He tossed it aside and resumed work.
He removed five more stones before he stopped and said, out of breath, “Man, I’m three feet down and there’s nothing but rocks. I don’t think there’s anything in here.”
I had been so preoccupied over what might be there that I hadn’t seriously considered that possibility. Burying something any deeper in this soil would be a real challenge. Yet how could I leave without being sure? “Here, let me dig for a while,” I said, and offered him the light.
He scowled at me. “No, that’s all right, I’ll go a little deeper. Hold the light steady.”
I did so, kneeling so close that dirt from each spadeful sprayed on me. I realized C.C. was humming to himself, pacing each move. After a moment, I recognized the melody: it was “I Know a Secret,” from Ray’s show. Julie, as ghost-Byrda, sang it bent over the facsimile of the very spot we were digging.
What’s buried here, only I can tell
What lies below, is known only to me
No one even knows about this place
Except the wind, the sky, and the trees
Yet what I have hidden is more precious than gold,
More valuable than the blood in my veins
And someday, oh, someday, I may be able to share it
With the man who gives me his name.…
Part of me, the rational part, wondered how the hell he knew this song. He hadn’t been there when I sang the score for the Parrishes. But most of me was just wrapped up in the magic of this moment, of this song in this place at this time.
I began to sing along, softly at first. C.C. expertly harmonized. I’d never heard him sing, and his voice was a rich, full baritone. Of course he sings like an angel, I thought. He’s got wings, after all.
Then the shovel hit something that wasn’t stone.
25
The flat sound of metal against wood told me that, whatever it was, it was no rock. C.C. abruptly stopped singing, put the shovel aside, and knelt over the hole. “Hand me the light,” he said.
He shone it on a piece of wood at the center of the exposed dirt. I knew nothing about how wood aged, but this certainly looked ancient. Only a tiny portion was un
covered; the whole thing could’ve been as small as a shoe box, or as big as a coffin.
He gave the light back to me and dug with his fingers, searching for the edges. It didn’t take long.
“Can you tell what it is?” I whispered.
“Just a minute,” he said. “I think I’ve got it.”
With a grunt, he pulled a small wooden box from the ground.
The circle of light on it shook, because my hands trembled with excitement. Dirt covered most of the surface, and C.C. spent a moment brushing it off. There were no external markings of any kind, nothing helpful like a label that read, CONTENTS: ONE (1) SECRET DIARY, or CAUTION: PROOF OF ILLICIT MARRIAGE, SHAKE WELL BEFORE USING.
He turned it. A small, old padlock held it closed. It looked like it would come off with one good hammer blow.
Something moved in the darkness. I jumped and stared, but saw nothing.
“What?” C.C. asked.
I continued to peer into the shadows. “Probably just the wind. Right?”
He said nothing.
And yet … did the shadowy forms of the trees make the outline of the king of the forest in human form that I thought I’d glimpsed that afternoon? Were branches his antlers, a broken stump his muscular torso? Or was I just projecting?
I tore my eyes away. My heart threatened to jump up through my throat. “C-can you open it?”
“Just put it in the bag,” C.C. said. “We can look at it later.”
I took it from him. It was heavy, and solid, and nothing seemed to move inside it. I turned it this way and that, looking for anything that would tell me what it was beyond a box. Whatever it contained would solve a mystery that I, and all of us involved in Chapel of Ease, had obsessed about for weeks. I’d promised Neil pictures, so still holding the box and flashlight, I tried to get out my phone.
“Stop that!” C.C. whispered as he climbed out of the hole. “Just put it in the goddamn bag, we have time for all that shit later.”
I knew he was right, but having it here, in my hands, inches from my eyes, was almost too much to resist. Surely the old lock would break loose with very little effort, and then—
C.C. snatched it from me and stuffed it into the bag. “Don’t get hypnotized, we’re not out of the woods yet. And I mean that literally. Now, come on.”
We had to use the light to get out of the ruins because our eyes were no longer adjusted to the dark. We were just about to reach the trees when a loud kerrack! rang out, and something struck the tree nearest my head, spraying wood splinters into my face. Luckily nothing hit my eyes as I ducked and then threw myself on the ground. Belatedly I thought to turn off the light.
This time there were no taunts, just silence as the Durants waited. I imagined smug, grinning Billy, just itching for his chance. It scared me, but it also pissed me off.
“They’ve got night-vision scopes,” C.C. whispered. “They’re just waiting for us to stand up.”
“They can wait,” I whispered back. “I don’t suppose you brought one of those guns?”
“You said you didn’t want to.”
“And you listened to me? I’m a Yankee!”
He whisper-laughed at that, then said seriously, “We have to split up. They won’t know who to shoot at. Can you find your way back to the truck?”
“Uh … maybe. That way?”
“Yes. We’ll meet there.”
He rose into a crouch and scurried into the trees. There was another loud gunshot, almost simultaneous with the thump of something solid into wood. C.C.’s movements continued afterwards, so I knew he wasn’t hit.
But he’d been right about the night-vision scopes. I’d seen them used on TV and in the movies, but that gave me no practical idea about how to evade them long enough to get into the woods. And I couldn’t just stay here and wait for them to find me.
I thought of something else I’d seen in the movies and felt around for a stick or rock. I found a fist-size stone, then rose up enough to throw it. It crashed loudly in the night silence.
They shot again, right at me. The bullet struck the ground six inches from my head, sending an arc of dirt into my hair.
That was incentive enough. I got up and ran, hoping the trees would make it hard for them to follow. Two shots rang out; they sounded completely different, which I assumed meant they were from two different guns.
A voice, much closer than I expected, said, “Go git ’em!” And then I heard something growl.
C.C. had mentioned that the Durants had dogs. I’d seen a pair of them when we barreled past their house two days before. I knew people with dogs, and our family had even owned one when I was a kid. But I never heard any dog make a noise like this. Whatever breed it was, it was big, and strong, and way too close.
And that brings us up to where this whole story started.
26
It took maybe ten steps for me to get thoroughly disoriented, so that I had no idea if I was running toward C.C.’s truck. I kept my arms up in front of my face, and despite everything flashed on the ludicrous line from Phantom of the Opera: “Keep your hand at the level of your eyes!” It made no sense when I saw the show, and because of that, it stuck with me. Now it was a literal instruction, because I needed it to block the branches and vines.
And no matter how fast I ran, or how many times I zigged and zagged, I heard the dog getting closer. First his paws, then his growling, then his breathing.
Finally, I gave up. I stopped, groped around until I found a fallen branch, and backed up against the biggest tree I could find. I held the stick like a baseball bat and waited to see my pursuer.
He—I assumed it was a he—padded out of the shadows into a thin patch of moonlight. In my terrified state, he looked as big as a horse, and the first thing I thought of was The Hound of the Baskervilles. Reading that story as a child, I always wondered how anyone could be so scared of a mere dog. Now I knew.
He had short hair that shone where the light hit it and rippled over his muscles. I couldn’t see any teeth when he growled, but I was pretty sure they’d be huge, too. The stick in my hand could not have felt more inadequate. I remembered Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters, facing down a hellhound, and thought, Who ya gonna call? Nobody came to mind.
He was less than ten feet away now, and his masters drew close as well, although with far less speed and grace. Apparently they trusted the dog to do most of the dirty work of catching me. Which, of course, he had.
And now he was about to finish the job.
Then, for no obvious reason, he took a step backwards and growled in a completely new way. Suddenly he was frightened.
Something moved in the corner of my eye. Had the Durants flanked me, or had I just run straight into their clutches? I turned.
A man emerged from the forest and stood beside the same tree I cowered against.
Although I couldn’t see his face, his body shape told me it wasn’t C.C., or his friend Doyle. All the Durants I’d seen had been larger as well. He was shorter, and slighter, than any of them. He had an unruly shock of dark hair silhouetted by the moonlight, and wore overalls. He carried no weapon, yet the dog continued to back away, his growl now becoming a low, keening whine.
I glanced from the dog to the man, not sure what exactly was happening. Why did this guy frighten the dog so much?
And then I saw the obvious. I mean that literally: faintly but distinctly, I saw the moonlit trees through the man’s form. He was a ghost.
A haint.
But this wasn’t Ray; that was certain. Everything was different.
He turned to me, and at last I saw his face. He was young, barely out of his teens, and his clean-shaven face was sad and forlorn. He looked right at me, right into me, and with a fresh jolt of recognition I realized who he had to be.
Not Shad.
The nameless ghost.
I still clutched my stick, although it was as useless against a ghost as it was the Hound of the Durants.
He made no effort to speak, ju
st continued to look at me sadly, as if I’d somehow done something awful that he’d known I was going to do, but hoped I wouldn’t. Or perhaps I was projecting. Then he raised his arm and pointed.
I looked the way he indicated, and saw only more forest. Then I realized he was pointing at the way I’d just come, back toward the chapel of ease. I shook my head.
He pointed again, more vehemently. Then he grabbed my upper arm.
I felt him, just as I’d felt Ray’s presence under my feet on the porch. His fingers were thin, small, and no stronger than a man’s, certainly no spectral death grip. Was this really a ghost? I was about to pull away when I heard the dog yelp in pain.
Billy Durant, carrying a flashlight and shotgun, stood over the cowering dog and drew back for another kick. “You god-danged fucking waste of fucking dog skin!” he said. The dog cried out again and huddled as close to the ground as he could, eyes looking up pitifully.
“Don’t kick the damn dog, Billy,” Winslow said as he appeared, carrying a large rifle with a huge night-vision scope.
“I’d cut his damn balls off, if he still had any,” Billy snarled.
Now I was puzzled. I was, at most, ten feet away from them. I wasn’t in shadow, and I wasn’t hiding. How could they not see me? I stayed very still, and the ghost at my elbow did not move, either.
“So what do we do now?”
“We keep after him. He’s a Yankee city-boy faggot, he ain’t gonna get away.”
“I dunno.…”
Billy looked at his brother. “What’s wrong with you now?”
“There’s something weird about this spot. Don’t you feel it?”
“Yeah, but so what? We ain’t stayin’ here. Now, get moving before I kick your ass, too.”
“You got a lot to learn about motivatin’ people, bro,” Winslow said. He shuffled past me, within inches, and so did Billy. The dog scurried off in another direction, presumably back toward home.
I looked down at the ghost’s hand on my arm. Was that why they couldn’t see me?
When the sound of their footsteps faded away, the ghost released me. Again he pointed back toward the chapel. This time I nodded, turned in that direction, and when I looked back, he was gone.
