Daemon of the Dark Wood

by Randy Chandler

  “Has he come to recruit new Maenads? Is that the explanation for what happened in Widow’s Ridge over a hundred years ago? Were the men of the hamlet slaughtered as sacrificial lambs to an old god? And has he come back for new offerings of sex and sacrifice?”

  “I just remembered something else from my mythology course,” she said. “Dionysus-slash-Pan was a savior-god, actually a forerunner of Christ. The blood of the men the Maenads murdered was used to fertilize the grapevine, which symbolically represented the god’s physical incarnation. Dionysus was, after all, the wine-god. And blood-wine supposedly represents the human soul.”

  “So … the Horned God is here to collect sacrificial souls and to take them back into the bosom of Mother Nature, from whence we all come? Or is it that our hypothetical modern-day Maenads are out for blood to bring their god into their world, because so far, only his terrible cry is manifest, and he wants to come hoofing full-fleshed into the twenty-first century?”

  “You know how crazy we sound, don’t you?” said Sharyn. “This whole thing is preposterous. Isn’t it?”

  “Of course, it is. But if we’re to believe Reverend Waller’s account, something happened in eighteen sixty-six that made the women of Widow’s Ridge slaughter their menfolk and subsequently cover it up with the story that the men all died in the Civil War. And layered beneath that story is the suggestion of Dionysian myth, this Helling. I suspect it was concocted to relieve the women of their guilt over what they’d done.”

  Sharyn said, “Unless it’s not a myth.”

  A nurse’s aide knocked at the door, stuck her head in and announced that visiting hours were over.

  Thorn stood. Sharyn rose with him. She held his hand and kissed his cheek at the door. “Thank you, Al. Thanks for playing along. It did me a world of good. You always know just how to reach me. Who else but you could make me see how far-fucking-out my thinking was, and without belittling me. Pan, my ass.”

  She lightly kissed his lips.

  He gave her a bewildered look, started to say something, then shrugged and smiled.

  “Good-night,” she said.

  “Sleep well. I’ll come back tomorrow,” he promised.

  When she was alone again, she went to the window and parted the curtain. Her reflection was a pale blur in the dark glass. Thunder tumbled down the mountainside and filled the hollow. Trembling, she hugged herself and tried to banish the stark image of a goat-footed god back into the realm of mythology.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  Asa Edgar stepped out into the rain and shut his cabin door behind him. Lightning flashed above the mountain and a cannonade of thunder roused ghosts of displaced dead.

  Asa could feel the electric crackle of restless souls in the stormwind. He smelled the ancient grave-scented sadness of homeless soldiers lost and wandering these black hills, bearing wounds grievously eternal. Overriding those familiar scents were the pungent odors of the Beast and the sour stench of Asa’s own fear.

  The hallucinatory word-images and ecstatic artwork contained in Asa’s thick book by William Blake were fresh in his mind as he trudged through the night rain. As he had no television or radio, he usually spent his evenings reading either Blake or the Good Book, by firelight or by lamplight. Tonight had been no different. Tonight he had read passages about Blake’s ancient god Urizen, and that strange poetry still sang in his breast, adding a cutting edge to his apprehension.

  The lines of poetry were etched in flames in his memory.

  Lo, a shadow of horror is risen

  In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,

  Self-clos’d, all-repelling: what Demon

  Hath form’d this abominable void,

  This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? Some said

  “It is Urizen.” But unknown, abstracted,

  Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.

  Urizen and the Beast of the hills were becoming one in the center of his fear. And his fear was edging into the territory of deep terror, where Urizen’s “dark power hid.”

  Asa did not want to go deeper into this wet darkness. He did not want to risk a dangerous encounter with the beastly god, but he was bound by solemn duty, having been charged to the task years ago by his mother. He was the sentry. The lone guardian of his ancestral hills.

  “My weird,” he whispered to the night, remembering the sharp pricks of his mother’s magic needles and the cutting discipline of her special blade she employed to bleed the fear from him.

  * * * *

  Rourke set the phone softly back into its cradle and muttered a curse.

  “Mrs. Bowen must be a basket case by now,” Alice Marsh said from behind the dispatcher’s desk. “You handled that well.”

  Rourke grunted. He took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “I just can’t figure it,” he said. “Four women vanishing without a damn trace …”

  “Venture called in while you were on the phone,” she said. “Wanted to make sure his overtime’s approved.”

  He nodded, thinking: That prick. “Call the hospital and see how the sheriff is doing.”

  “I just did. He’s sleeping now. Still confused when he’s awake.”

  Rourke rifled the pages of the four unofficial Missing Persons reports on his desk. “The only thing I know to do,” he said, “is to see if Dudley Wallace can get his bloodhound to pick up Mrs. Gladstone’s scent and track her down. That’s assuming she set out on foot. And if this rain keeps up, the dog will probably be useless.”

  “You want me to call him?” asked Alice.

  “No, I’ll do it. I should’ve got him on this earlier, before dark, but I kept thinking Gladys would turn up.”

  “You had your hands full all day. And besides, nobody’s been missing twenty-four hours yet.”

  He looked at his wristwatch and said, “Two more hours will make twenty-four for Judy Lynn.”

  The phone jangled as he was reaching for it to call Dudley the dog handler. He answered. The caller identified himself as William Archer, the owner and builder of Mountview Villas. Archer said he’d spoken to Sheriff Gladstone last week about checking on his daughter and her roommate, and he was calling now to report that the two young ladies had arrived there today, adding that he would appreciate it if a deputy could check in with the girls tonight, “just to let them know they’re being looked after, since they’re there by themselves.”

  “Yes sir,” Rourke said. “We’ll be glad to do it. I didn’t think anybody would be moving in until the first of the month.”

  “I told Julie she could move in a couple of weeks early. She’s a writer,” Archer explained, “and she’s anxious to get started on her next book in the solitude of the mountains. I figured she could keep an eye on things until the maintenance crew reports for work while she’s working on her book.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on them,” said Rourke. “No problem.”

  He hung up, knowing he’d probably lied to the man. With the unexplained disappearances of four local women, Rourke knew that two girls living alone in Mountview Villas had the potential of becoming a big problem for Arcadia County’s undersized sheriff’s department.

  “What was that all about?” Alice asked.

  “Another damn headache,” said Rourke. “Two girls—”

  A rumbling boom of thunder shook the building, drowning his words.

  * * * *

  Trey Knott pushed his plate aside and took a sip of wine.

  Susan said, “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

  “Hmm?” He looked across the table at his wife.

  “Something on your mind?” Her brows arched over her lovely blue eyes.

  “I was thinking about a patient. This elderly catatonic took a crayon to her wall for some non-scheduled art therapy.”

  Susan smiled. “Must’ve been pretty interesting to preoccupy you so.”

  “It was pretty bizarre,” he said. “Unsettling, actually. The anthropology professor from the college was so taken with it he took photos.
Alfred Thorn?”

  “Goodness, what was he doing there?”

  “Visiting a friend.”

  “I didn’t think catatonics did much of anything,” she said.

  “She came out of it long enough to color the wall, then she withdrew into herself again. She even labeled her work. ‘Helling.’”

  “And you’re trying to make sense of it. Looking for a deep psychological significance?”

  He shrugged, then smiled. “Thorn saw a satyr in it. With a huge erection.”

  Susan laughed. “A satyr?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you know. Half man, half beast, with insatiable sexual appetites.”

  “Probably says more about Thorn than the artist.”

  “Maybe. But then I saw it too.”

  Susan smiled slyly. “Hmm, I think I can handle your appetites. More wine?”

  “Better not. I’m still on-call.”

  “Then you’ll have to settle for getting drunk on the wine of love.” She teased her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, eyes sparkling.

  Rain blew against the dining room window as the thunderstorm rolled over the house. Knott stared into his glass of claret and envisioned the swirling red chaos of the old woman’s crayon drawing.

  * * * *

  The lights flickered and Angela cursed. “The lights better not go out,” she said.

  “I love a good storm,” said Julie, bending to the vanilla-scented candle’s flame to light her cigarette.

  “You would. Being a famous horror writer and all.”

  Julie sat back on the couch, crossed her legs under her and exhaled a stream of smoke. “I’m not famous yet, but this new book just might put me on the literary map. I’m going to make it really scary. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that gave me the willies.”

  Angela chortled. “I can remember a couple of willies that were pretty damn scary. Before I changed my sexual allegiance.”

  “You were such a slut.”

  “You were nobody’s idea of a saint.” Angela cut her eyes at Julie.

  “No, but I didn’t screw Kenny Kleeber either.” Julie squinted in the cigarette smoke.

  “Hey, I was stoned. And he wasn’t that bad in the sack. If his dick was as half big as his ego, it would’ve been great.”

  They both laughed. Angela sipped from her wine glass. Julie flicked ashes into the ashtray.

  “I can’t get that dream out of my head,” Julie said. “Scared the shit out of me. I loved it. Now if I can just capture that raw fear in my novel …”

  “You would’ve really loved mine. Getting raped by a statue! God. An angel with a giant dong. Where the hell did that come from?”

  “What’s really strange is that we had nightmares at the same time. I almost never have nightmares. I wish I could, you know, for my writing’s sake.”

  “And it wasn’t even nighttime. Wouldn’t that make them daymares?”

  “I think being here is going to be good for my writing,” said Julie, drawing deeply on her cigarette. “There’s a strong vibe about this place. A Gothic feel, a sense of old, restless spirits. I love these mountains. I feel like I belong here.”

  “It is beautiful up here. But I’m staying away from those damned angels.”

  “For God’s sake, Ange, it was just a dream. You can be such a child.”

  “I’ve always had this thing about statues. They creep me out big time. I think it goes back to that wax museum in St. Augustine. I was six years old, and my parents dragged me in there and I freaked. All those wax dummies standing around like dead people with their eyes open was more than I could handle. And then one of them started moving. I pissed my pants and ran out of there screaming. They tried to explain later that it was animatronic. Didn’t mean shit to me. I knew those dummies were all coming to life to get me. I’ve never set foot in a wax museum since. You couldn’t drag me into one now. And stone statues have the same effect. That’s why I hate cemeteries. I just know all those stone statues are a breath away from coming alive and coming after me.”

  “No wonder the dream freaked you,” said Julie, turning sympathetic.

  “Hey.” Angela shrugged. “I won’t bother them, maybe they won’t bother me.”

  Julie stubbed out her smoke and stood. “I need to get some writing done. Will you be all right? By yourself?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m not six years old anymore.” She flashed a wan smile. “I’ve got a play to read. Ibsen’s The Doll House. If you hear voices, it’ll just be me reciting lines.”

  “Unless it’s those restless mountain spirits.” Julie showed her teeth in a demonic grin and waggled her brows.

  “You can cut that shit out right now. Maybe you like being scared, but I don’t. Keep it to yourself.”

  Julie blew her a raspberry, then smiled, got up and started to her bedroom.

  “Hey, don’t forget we’re getting up early in the morning to go grocery shopping,” Ange said.

  “Our first foray into Dogwood,” Julie said, putting mock dreaminess in her voice.

  “Hillbilly Heaven. Hold me back.” Angela jumped up and bounced off to her room.

  Julie sat down at her laptop and limbered her fingers. Rain ticked against the window. A flash of lightning illuminated the gathering of angels in the garden below. She shivered pleasurably.

  * * * *

  Liza Leatherwood sat in her rocker before the cold fireplace and listened with dead ears to the ringing silence of the room. The deep quiet made her feel as if she were not fully in the world. Her loss of hearing heightened her remaining senses, sharpening them against the surrounding silence. She no longer clearly heard the familiar sounds of summer night on the mountain. She didn’t hear the wind moaning around the eaves of the house or hear the rain pattering on the roof. She could feel the bone-deep vibrations of thunder but she heard them distinctly only in her memory. She felt the creaking of the wooden rocking chair but she scarcely heard it.

  She regretted the incremental loss of her hearing and it made her sad to know that the remainder of her allotted time on the mountain would be spent in virtual silence, but she also felt a sense of triumph. The shrill call of the beast would fall impotently on her partially deaf ears. She would not be pressed against her will into the service of evil revelry and brutal slaughter. A woman her age probably wouldn’t survive the Helling anyway and therefore wouldn’t have to live with her evil deeds, but now, being immune, Liza no longer had to fear for her soul.

  She unscrewed the metal lid, turned the jar up to her lips and sipped again of the strong spirits. Then she opened the leather-bound book in her lap and began to read another Hawthorne story.

  She heard the great man’s words in her mind and they resonated within her breast. Hawthorne’s deathless voice soothed her for a time. Then her eyes grew tired and she shut the book and wiped away a tear with a lacy hankie.

  * * * *

  With a delicious shudder, Alfred Thorn smoothed the photocopied pages of Reverend Waller’s journal on his desk. His small office was a bubble of security, a cozy cubbyhole on this stormy summer night. He was the only person in the building, according to Sam Bellows, the nightshift campus security guard.

  Thorn packed his pipe and fired it up, savoring the taste and aromatic tang of Prince Albert tobacco—the same brand his grandfather had smoked most of his life. There was no smoking on campus, but there was no one here to catch him at it and complain. He read the first line of the entry he hadn’t let Sharyn see, but his mind wouldn’t stay focused on the words. He kept seeing the fear in Sharyn’s eyes and in the worry lines around her eyes’ corners—fear he’d added to by showing her Waller’s handwritten words and bringing up the subject of Pan. Now he wished he hadn’t done it. He should’ve kept the visit light and just let her know he was there for her, but he’d let the excitement of discovery get the better of him and he had foolishly brought her into his search for the secret of Widow’s Ridge.

  “The Secret of Widow’s Ridge,” he s
aid aloud, thinking it would make a fine subtitle for the scholarly article he intended to write for The American Journal of Anthropology, once he got to the bottom of the folkloric mystery. Then he once again saw Sharyn’s fear-constricted face and he winced. He shouldn’t have indulged in such speculative fantasy in front of her. What the devil had he been thinking? He’d inadvertently provided her with raw material to feed her near-delusional thinking about some demon of the dark wood calling to her. How could he have been so insensitive? He didn’t know much about bipolar disorder, but he knew that when the body chemistry was out of whack, the typical manic-depressive was prone to delusional thinking. He damned well should’ve known better than to contribute to Sharyn’s unreasonable fears.

  Thorn knew what the problem was. He was a man of science, but he still had a boy’s love of science-fiction and the fantastic. He had never outgrown his love of the amazing tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft and the like. That same love had led him into the fields of anthropology and archeology in the first place. Moreover, he believed it was important that he maintain a youthful sense of adventure in his work. Scientific pursuits tended toward drudgery, and the scientist had to take inspiration where he found it if he didn’t want to become a drudge himself. Of course, he never let those fantasies creep into his actual work, and until now he’d always been able to keep the two worlds separate, but this current project was somehow different. This time the fantastic wanted to intrude upon the rational world—as it had in his searching conversation with Sharyn. He’d done her a terrible disservice. He needed to make amends. He decided he would take her some flowers when he saw her tomorrow and keep the visit carefree and cheery, with no shoptalk and no mention of anything upsetting.

  His conscience somewhat assuaged by his future intentions, he reread the entry for June 26, 1866.

  The missing women returned to their homes in the dead of night and were not discovered until the next morning. Most were naked, but a few wore blood-stained garments indicative of their participation in the Abominable Slaughter. The women were confused and could not explain their collective absence, nor could they explain the dried blood on their persons, beneath their fingernails and even in the hair of their privates. Nor were they the least concerned about the gore or about their memory lapses. When asked what had happened to the menfolk, not one of them could answer. But neither did they seem unduly concerned with the missing men. When at last they were told of the slaughtered remains found in the forest, they all seemed genuinely surprised, but not a single female seemed shocked. To a woman, they accepted the news of their Butchered men with a singular lack of emotion. The death of a family dog would’ve evoked more of a reaction than these women exhibited.