by Val Crowe
I shook myself. Where was that image coming from? Scout was definitely dead. No, if his body started to move around again, it would be from some unearthly force.
Thinking that didn’t exactly reassure me.
I started walking briskly towards Rylan’s cabin. Not that I’d be safer there or anything, not really. But it would feel safer, locked behind a door.
Of course, something could have happened to Rylan. If Dominique was in the cabin with Alice and Cat, she wasn’t keeping watch. Maybe something had climbed up the steps to Rylan’s cabin, pried open the door, and then set about silently hacking into—
Stop it, Deacon, I admonished myself.
My pulse was racing as I reached the cabin. I took the steps two at a time, and I didn’t bother to knock when I got there. I just yanked open the door.
Which, as it turned out, wasn’t a great choice.
CHAPTER TEN
“God, Deacon, what is your problem?” Rylan was yanking the covers up, trying to cover herself, trying to cover Mundy.
I was backing out of the cabin, hands up over my face to try to block what I was seeing. Mostly because of the fact that I was worried Rylan would dismember me if I ogled her and her girl than because it was a bad thing to see. I mean, sure, I would have liked to see more, because, you know two girls in bed together, it’s—
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” came Rylan’s shrill voice. “Shut the door.”
I shut the door. “Uh, they want you in Cat’s and Alice’s cabin.” I turned around and started back down the steps.
“Is everyone okay?” Rylan called after me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, totally fine.” I stalked down the steps.
The door opened. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
I turned around.
Rylan, still pulling down her shirt, was coming out of the door. She tugged her hair out of the back of the shirt. “I mean, seriously, Deacon.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing?” I pointed at the open door.
Mundy appeared in the doorway, dressed now. “Um, you’re not leaving me here by myself.”
“Fine,” said Rylan. She started down the steps. “Having sex in the wake of a death is a perfectly normal thing to do. It’s life affirming and restorative and—”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t knock.”
“You should be,” said Rylan.
Mundy came behind Rylan. She wouldn’t look at me. It was dark, but I thought she might be blushing.
I thought I might be blushing too. “I didn’t really see anything,” I muttered. “It’s dark.” That was a lie. I had definitely gotten a little bit of an eyeful there.
Rylan punched me in the arm.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing the spot. “That hurt.”
“You’re a dickwad,” she said to me.
“I’m not,” I said, moving away from her. “I said I was sorry, okay?”
“Yeah, but you’re not,” she said. “I can see it all over you. You’re elated at the prospect of seeing two chicks go at it. You’re going to have masturbatory fantasies for months, and—”
“Stop,” said Mundy in a quiet voice.
Rylan turned to look at her.
“Let’s just forget about it,” said Mundy.
“I like that idea,” I said.
Rylan considered for a minute, shrugged, and then looked at me. “So, what’s this all about?”
“Alice found a journal,” I said. “Dominique thinks we can use it to try to set up something to release the spirits.”
“Oh,” said Rylan. “You think that would work?”
“Uh, probably not,” I said.
Rylan smirked.
“Look, maybe Dominique knows something I don’t,” I said. “She’s got experience with hauntings. She talks as though she knows what she’s talking about.”
“Yeah, but she’s creepy,” said Mundy.
“Don’t say that in front of Deacon,” said Rylan. “He’s got a crush on her.”
“I do not,” I said tightly.
“You’re really one to latch on, huh?” said Mundy. “I mean, when we got here, you wanted to ask me out, and now you’re all over Dominique—”
“I have no desire to date either of you!” I blurted. I mean, I had an it’s-complicated thing going with a ghost, so there was that.
Neither Rylan nor Mundy responded, but there was a noise from the woods, like a footstep breaking a fallen branch.
We all whirled in the direction of the sound, squinting and trying to make out anything in the darkness.
It was still.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
We hurried to Cat’s cabin.
* * *
Alice screamed when we opened the door.
“It’s us,” I said.
“Sorry we didn’t knock,” said Rylan. “There was a noise outside…” She looked over her shoulder.
Dominique turned to look at us. She had the camera on Alice, who was sitting on the floor with the book open on her lap. “Shut the door,” said Dominique.
“What if he’s out there?” said Mundy, looking outside.
“He’s definitely out there,” said Dominique. “And when he comes for us, it probably won’t matter if the door’s shut. But it’s cold out there, so close it.”
Mundy closed the door.
“Should we really bother filming things right now?” said Rylan to Dominique.
“You’ll thank me later,” said Dominique. She nodded at Alice. “Go ahead. Keep reading.”
Alice took a deep breath, looking us all over. “Did Deacon tell you about the journal?”
“A little bit,” said Rylan.
“Not much,” said Mundy.
“Well, it was written by Josiah Symonds’s oldest son, Macon,” said Alice. “Macon had been trying to convince his mother to leave his father and to take all the children with her, but his mother was afraid. She believed that Josiah was the prophet of the Lord and that everything that came from his mouth came direct from heaven. She was badly brainwashed. Macon wrote all these journal entries debating on leaving without her, but he loved his mother, who did the best she could to protect her children from her husband. More than once, he would make a mistake in his chores, and his father would be about to beat Macon, but his mother would claim it was her fault, and she would take Macon’s punishment, even after he was full grown. When all this went down, Macon was nineteen years old.”
“We think we’re almost to the end,” said Dominique. “Josiah has been getting worse and worse. He’s become obsessed with a blood sacrifice, like Abraham was forced to make of Isaac.”
“But in that story,” said Alice, “God was only testing Abraham to see if he’d do it. Right at the last moment, God said that Abraham didn’t have to kill his son after all.”
“But as we know, with Josiah, God didn’t intervene,” said Dominique. She pointed the camera at Alice. “Keep reading.”
Alice looked down at the book. Her eyes danced over the words. “Um, no, that’s the last thing I can make out on the page.”
“Okay, next entry, then.”
Alice turned the page. “Oh, this is the last entry. And the page…” She held it up to show us. There was a dark reddish brown stain that had soaked through the last few pages of the book. “It’s blood.”
“Read it,” urged Dominique.
“It’s different,” said Alice. “It doesn’t have a date or anything like the other ones do. And the handwriting is shaky and hard to read.” She cleared her throat. “‘Everyone’s dead.’” She raised her gaze to us. “Oh my goodness. He lived long enough to write a journal entry.”
“Read,” said Rylan, sitting down on the floor, eyes wide and eager.
Oh, what the hell? I sat down too.
“‘Now I know what the consequences were of my hesitation. I wanted to take everyone and go last week, but I stayed for Mother. Now, no one will ever leave. I thought tha
t I could stop him, but I was too late. He waited until I was out in the woods chopping firewood, and that was when he did it. He made them all come into the prayer cabin. I don’t know what he did after that. They all looked as if they were kneeling for prayers when he began cutting their throats as if he was slaughtering animals. Everyone, even little Lydia. And to think that we thought he was a man of God. He has always been the devil.’”
Alice looked up at us. “But if Macon survived, then why did they find his body?”
“Maybe he explains. Keep reading,” said Mundy.
Alice nodded, bending over the page. “Uh… the next part I can’t make out. It’s where the water damaged it, made the ink run.” She paused, looking further down the page. “Okay, okay. Here. ‘…thought I wouldn’t care now that everyone else is gone, and there would be no fight in me, but he was wrong. He was not expecting my rage. And he thought that he could take me down, but no matter how many times he stabbed me, I didn’t fall. I barely felt it. I got the knife away from him and then I could not stop myself from stabbing him, over and over and over again.’”
“Well, that explains things,” said Rylan. “How Josiah stabbed himself. He didn’t. Macon killed him.”
“Keep reading,” said Dominique.
“It’s hard to make out the next couple of sentences. The next thing I can see is something like, ‘punished for the things that we did. I resisted him for as long as I could, but there were only so many times that he could thrust Deborah into my arms before it happened anyway. I would not admit it, even to the pages here, but now it is the end, and I don’t see why I should conceal it. She was my sister, but I loved her, and when she miscarried that baby, I could not know if it was mine or my father’s, and I thought that was punishment enough. But I was wrong. We all had to be slaughtered here. Maybe we were a sacrifice, but not to God in Heaven. Rather to the devil in Hell. Our lives were given to evil, and now we are all lost in blood. I will write this, and then I will crawl back to the prayer cabin to die with my arms around Deborah, and that will be the end.’”
Alice looked up at us, eyes wide.
“Holy shit,” said Rylan. “Did that just say what I think it said?”
“It’s horrible,” said Alice. “It’s the worst thing I ever heard. He loved her, and he couldn’t save her.”
“Incest,” whispered Rylan.
“But they were forced,” said Alice. “And they didn’t have anyone except each other, and their father was awful. I mean… you can’t blame them for that.”
Rylan looked at Mundy. “These are, like, your relations.”
“Distant relations,” said Mundy. “For which I am very, very glad.”
“It’s not Josiah,” said Alice suddenly, looking at all of us. “The man we saw in the woods, he looked too young to be Josiah, don’t you think?”
“Right,” I murmured. “The ghost with the knife. He’s Macon.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dominique lowered the camera, switching it off.
“Oh, now you’re done filming?” I said sharply.
“Now, we’ve got to make a plan to stop the ghost,” she said. “No reason to spoil the action with a big scene explaining what we’re going to do.”
I looked at the others. “You guys agree with me? The specter that chased us in the woods was Macon Symonds, right?”
“Yes,” said Alice. “Definitely.”
Dominique and Rylan nodded.
Mundy spread her hands. “I haven’t seen him yet, I don’t think. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen Scout’s body, I don’t think I’d believe any of this was happening. Maybe I still don’t believe.” She hugged herself.
“But why is Macon doing this?” said Alice. She closed the journal. “He wasn’t a bad person. And he only killed his father because he had no other choice.”
No one said anything.
“We do need to figure out why,” said Dominique. “Because whatever it is he wants, we have to find a way to give it to him, so that he can rest in peace and move on.”
“Look, I’m not sure that’s exactly how spirits work,” I said. “I have this theory about traumatic energy attracting spirits, who are essentially a blank slate until they latch onto the bad energy in a place.”
“Wait? What?” said Rylan. “You never told me this before.”
I rubbed my forehead. “All I’m saying is that whatever is here may have just picked up the violence and the form of Macon. Maybe it’s not really him. It’s only the parts left behind that were abused and hurt and that ultimately struck out with violence.”
“If that’s true,” said Dominique, “then we’ll never reach him.”
“We might not,” I said. “I think our best bet is to get out of here, honestly. We shouldn’t waste time trying to help the ghost move on. We should get as far away as we can.”
“Hiking out in that woods, we’re exposed,” said Dominique. “He’ll pick us off one by one. We’ve got to help him find peace, get him to move on.”
“Okay, so how do we do that?” said Alice.
“We have to figure out why he’s doing this,” said Dominique.
“Well, he’s lost it,” said Rylan. “He was pushed to his breaking point, and he snapped. He fell in love with his sister even though he didn’t want to, and then he watched the woman he loved be slaughtered, and then he took revenge, only to be killed himself. Now, he’s back to wreak havoc on the living. It’s like Pumpkinhead.” She considered. “Well, maybe more like Pumpkinhead II.”
“If we could undo it all,” said Dominique. “If he could save Deborah and his family and get free, then he would be able to move on.”
“Look, we need to leave,” I said.
“We have to try,” said Dominique.
“Maybe you want us all dead,” I said, leaning forward. “Maybe your cell phone and your keys aren’t even lost.”
Dominique was flabbergasted. “You can’t think that I wanted what happened to Scout to happen.”
“You filmed his dead body,” I said, clenching my hands into fists.
Dominique’s nostrils flared. “I think we should sleep on it and make a decision in the morning. And I think it’s your turn to take over the watch.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” she said.
* * *
I sat out in the dark on one of the benches around the campfire for a while. Everyone else went to bed. Rylan seemed to want to stay and talk to me, but Mundy didn’t want to be alone, and Rylan didn’t seem to want Mundy in on the conversation. I wasn’t sure what that was all about. Anyway, Rylan said we’d talk in the morning.
Dominique went back to her cabin, acting wounded, like I’d accused her for no reason. Maybe I had. I didn’t know.
Alice settled back in to go to sleep. Cat had slept through everything, which was good. She needed her rest.
No one had heard anything out of the cabin where Jonah and Kennely were sleeping, but I did go by before I took up my post by the campfire. I gently knocked at the door, and Jonah opened it. He told me everything was fine, but that they were both jumpy and having trouble sleeping. His breath smelled like liquor.
I couldn’t begrudge him drinking himself to sleep, I guess.
He said he could take a watch in a few hours, but I wasn’t going to wake him if he hadn’t gotten any sleep yet. But to avoid an argument, I just agreed that I’d come and get him.
It was really annoying not having a cell phone or something to do out there, because it was boring. At first, I was kind of creeped out, being alone in the dark and all, but after a while, I started to feel restless and wished I had something to do.
I called for Mads, hoping she’d come keep me company.
She flickered in next to me. “You okay?” She sounded worried.
“Just looking for company,” I said.
“No, I think that’s a bad call,” she said.
“Why?” I said.
“Because I think the more time we spend
together, the more confusing it gets. I’m here if you need me, Deacon, but that’s all.” She flickered back out again.
God, she was being so weird lately. And I really did not have the brain space to worry about that when we were all in mortal danger here.
Eventually, it was too uncomfortable sitting on one of the logs, because they didn’t have a back.
I went over to the porch of one of the unused cabins. I sat on the steps and leaned against the railing.
Pretty much immediately, I fell asleep.
* * *
I was inside the cabin with Jonah and Kennely. It wasn’t dark in there, because they had a kerosene lantern that was working for them. It was pretty bright. They were sprawled out on blankets, leaning against their air mattress, passing a bottle of vodka back and forth between them.
“Hey,” I said. “Can I have some of that?”
They ignored me.
Huh. Okay, so this was probably a dream, like that dream I’d seen of Scout last night. Not cool. It probably didn’t bode well for these guys. I needed to wake up. I seized a handful of flesh on my arm and pinched myself as hard as I could.
I couldn’t even feel it.
I didn’t wake up.
Damn it.
“We should probably sleep,” said Jonah to Kennely. “I mean, I just told Deacon that I was going to go out and do a few hours of the watch. I should sleep before I do that.”
Kennely gripped the neck of the vodka bottle. “If you go out there, I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’ll be all right, baby,” he said, rubbing her upper thigh. “I’ll be out there watching.”
“And who will be watching you?” she said. She shook her head. “I just can’t get over Scout. It’s so horrible. It doesn’t even seem real.”
He nodded. He held out his hand for the vodka bottle.
She handed it over.
He took a drink. “Look, we’re going to leave in the morning.”
“Yeah, when we’ll be hungover as hell and tired as fuck.” She dragged her hands over her face. “I can’t sleep. What if that thing is out there? What if he’s right on our porch? What if—”
