by Tony Nalley
“No, I don‘t hear anything.” I answered. “Who would be playin’ music all the way out here?”
“I don’t know, but keep your voice down.” Colby whispered while motionin’ me to follow him. “Let’s go check it out!”
There was no time to waste. I either followed him or I’d be left there in the dark alone. So I set our gear down upon the gravel road and I followed.
We crept through the trees and underbrush keepin’ our communications to a minimum.
The woods were thick and we traveled cautiously.
We could see em’ now amidst the thickness of the forest as they danced by the firelight. Smoke rose from the flames as they howled into the twilight. Drumbeats resounded and echoed throughout the woodlands and rock walled caverns.
Like wolves these creatures cackled with a great gnashing of teeth!
We moved in stealth around em’ …as that of a Mountain Lion; maintainin’ our distance and keepin’ downwind of their encampment.
“This is just like that movie ‘Salem’s Lot’.” Colby whispered to me as we knelt upon the ground hidin’ ourselves from the light. As history would have it, Bardstown was once known as Salem.
“Only these aren’t ‘Vampires’. They’re ‘werewolves’!” He continued.
The power of suggestion could lead a boy to think a great many things.
“I think we’d better go.” I whispered to Colby as the clamor around the fire grew louder.
Flickerin’ shafts of light danced amidst the trees. Like tiny soliloquies cutting through the darkness, the moon shone brightly castin’ its light upon the earth; for by the light of Earth’s moon they walk; half man half beast.
Colby shook his head at me but I couldn‘t see him. I was too busy watchin’ the people as they danced and sang around the campfire.
“You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” Colby whispered.
We moved cautiously over the trail by which we came, ever conscience of the sounds we made; retreatin’ backwards into the night, far enough from the fires that we could speak freely again.
It was hard making sense of what we had seen, putting into words expressions of fear.
One thing we knew for certain: it was a long way home if we were to make a run for it!
“Silver bullets can kill a ‘werewolf’.” I thought to myself. But we didn’t bring any with us. I held up my hand in front of my face, at arms length I couldn’t see my fingers.
“We’d better keep our flashlights off tonight so we’re not spotted.” I whispered, even though we were far enough out of ear shot now not to be heard.
“I agree. We need to keep the lights off.” Colby whispered back. “At least until we get to the other side of the quarry, and away from em’!” he continued as he pointed in the direction of the fires.
By the light of the full moon we picked up our gear and traveled to the east. After a while, our eyes adjusted to the dark. Things could be seen much clearer. But the suitcase was still heavy.
So I moved slowly, setting it down from time to time in attempts to rest my fingers from the rope handle that cut deep ridges into them. The indentured marks nearly cut off my circulation, and I had to open my fingers slowly so as to not break em’ off from the rest of my hand! It took a while to get the blood flowin’ again like normal, so I would sit down on the suitcase and rest for a minute while Colby continued blazing the trail ahead of us with the machete he had brought with him at the beginnin’ of our trip.
I was doing my best not to think about what we had seen. But I knew Colby was thinkin’ about it.
His imagination was geared more towards horror stories. He’d seen lots of scary movies in his life, much more than I had. His mom and dad had let him. So naturally when something like this happened, he automatically saw people and events that were unexplainable or unforeseen as somethin’ evil or savage!
There were lots of things that I didn’t know about in this world. I didn’t know for sure that the people we had seen were ‘werewolves’. But I did know that Colby had a history of trying to pull stuff over on me! And I wasn’t gonna have any foolin’ done on me while we were out by ourselves alone!
“Okay, I found a place close to the gravel road where they can’t see us.” Colby whispered.
My body held evidence of bruisin’ from head to toe! We had made a long and treacherous detour over rocky terrain, where sink holes and mud had found my every misstep.
“Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to have come by way of the gravel road?” I thought out loud to myself.
“They might have seen us.” Colby whispered in answer. “And we might be dead now!”
“We need only to stay alive until mornin’!” I thought to myself. “At first light we could go home and pretend like none of this had ever really happened.”
About a hundred yards further out, we reached the campsite. I carried our gear to where Colby stood, and I dropped the suitcase where it landed! My job was completed.
I was the ‘Transportation Specialist’. He was the ‘Army Corps of Engineers’. It meant that my job was to carry stuff and his job was to put it together!
By the moons light, Colby set up the tent. It was his dad’s tent, so if worst came to worst and he broke it, I wasn’t the one who was gonna get blamed for it! As he finished up, we gathered our things and crawled inside.
For a moment, we forgot about the light. Like a blanket that keeps you safe from the monsters that hide in your closet, the vinyl tent kept us safe from the monsters that lurked in the darkness. Or so we thought.
The bright orange walls illuminated as we turned on our flashlights, and laid there upon that floor basking in our accomplishments.
After a short rest and a nice cold drink, I organized our items and checked em’ off my list: Cokes, Chips, Radio, Batteries, Walkie-Talkies, Pellet Guns, Magazines, Extra Flashlights, Blankets, Pillows, Fire Crackers and other miscellaneous stuff.
All was found to be in order and as it should be, so I continued my work and divided our rations evenly between us. But as I grew ever more involved with my duties, I began to notice Colby’s silence. He just sat there quietly and listened. Listenin’ to what I didn’t know.
“Are you alright?” I whispered.
He did not respond.
“Colby?” I repeated, whisperin’ louder this time.
“Shhh!” He gestured to me and put a finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?” He whispered in answer.
Rains would be comin’ soon. The grumblings of an oncomin’ storm brewed in the west while the sounds of thunder cracked above us.
“I heard that!” I whispered back; my eyes as big around as saucers.
“That’s not what I meant!” He whispered. “Shhh! Listen! There’s something out there!”
I tried to listen as best I could, but the quieter I got the harder my heartbeat pounded until all I could hear was me!
‘SNAP!’
I heard it that time! The sound of a twig breakin’ just outside of our tent!
Outside the confines of our campsite, somethin’ walked amidst the darkness. The lonesome howl of distant wolves echoed throughout the stone quarry. Silence closed in around our camp, and our flashlights quickly went dark!
“Shhh!” Colby whispered again as he reached for his pellet gun. “I think they’ve followed us! We’d better check it out!” He whispered.
Cool winds washed over us as we crawled out into the murky darkness; an effervescent moon set low in an overcast sky. We stood together, surveyin’ the horizons; anticipatin’ attack at any moment. Adjustin’ to a lack of light we viewed the perimeter through a newly fallen mist.
Suddenly! Someone turned on the light!
“Well hello there!” Came a deep voice from out of nowhere with blindin’ white lights shinin’ in our eyes!
I could have jumped straight up to Heaven if hadn’t been shaking so bad! While my pride and ego refused to acknowledge the possibility that I had screamed, I most likely d
id!
Whirlin’ around in mere moments of time, our eyes were met with those of a stranger!
He stood in the darkness before us, as we shielded our eyes from the blindin’ lights; his form came more and more into focus.
Colby turned on his flashlight too and it was by his light then, that we could see the shimmer of a golden badge and a policeman’s uniform! The stranger who stood before us was a cop!
“We’re going to jail! We’re going to jail!” I thought to myself in sheer panic!
“We didn’t mean to startle you boys.” The policeman said as he shined his flashlight in our faces.
He was joined then by another officer who lingered in the darkness slightly outside of the light.
“But what are you doing out here?” he asked.
I tried to answer by sayin’ that “we were only out here campin’”. It was the truth. But the only thing that would come out of my mouth was, “Hey! Colby! Tell the man what we’re doin’ out here, man!” And then I poked him.
“Have we done something wrong officer?” Colby politely asked and then smiled the way he would whenever he thought he was in trouble.
He was more sophisticated that I was.
I was a deer in the headlights!
“No son, you boys are fine.” The officer stated removin’ his hand from his sidearm. “But there’s been a jail break over in MarionCounty, south of here. And word has it that they’ve been spotted somewhere in this area.” The officer continued. “Have you boys seen anything curious around here? Anybody …out of place?”
I wanted to tell him what we had seen in the woods; of ritual fires that burned as half human creatures danced and gnashed their teeth!
“But who would believe a couple of kids like us? And what could they do?” I thought. “And did it seem odd to anyone that these two policemen had come here alone …and on foot?”
Without discussion we remained silent about what we had seen.
We hadn’t seen any escaped convicts. So we shook our heads ‘no’. And then I spoke up.
“No sir.” I said. “We haven’t seen anybody. I just live down the road a piece and we came out here to camp out for the night.” I volunteered.
His partner smiled at me then as he languished in the dark. An uneasy canine smile filled with much fury! Through shadows and light he moved unstopping, transformin’ in the ominous gloom between man and beast.
“Well …okay then.” The officer replied snappin’ me back into reality. “We’ll be on our way.”
We watched as he motioned to his partner.
“You boys keep a look out now!” he said in turnin’.
The officer winked at us then and eerily smiled. “Let us know if you see anything.”
“Yes sir, we will.” Colby said holding his arm back against me as if to shield me from a blow.
We watched em’ as they looked back again, tippin’ their hats to us and disappearin’ along that graveled road.
We watched em’ as they returned into the dark state.
We watched as their human shapes subsided and their truer forms emerged!
Like wolves in sheep’s clothing they had come upon us, checkin’ our motives and scoutin’ for weakness. On the hunt they ran again with their brethren!
Venturing back once more into the darkened recesses!
The words from the fifteenth verse of the seventh chapter of Matthew came to my mind.
“Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
“Did you see…?” I whispered under my breath.
“Don’t say anything Toby.” Colby said cutting me off mid sentence. “‘Werewolves’ can hear you think.”
We no longer cared about drawin’ attention to our light. They knew we were here. They had been here and gone. If they were gonna kill us, they would have done so and have been done with it!
Our flashlights illuminated the bright orange colored canvas as we lie down in the tent, just as the heavens opened up above us and poured down upon our ever changin’ roof.
The tent rippled much like that of a flag in the wind, and grew moist to the touch from the rain.
Images of ‘werewolves’ filled my sleep. Savage beasts attacking women and children as they ravaged their villages; images of blood and fire as their men folk chased em’ from their homesteads with guns and pitchforks, riot and pain!
I caught a deep bone cold in my left arm that night, from the cold, the water or a combination of both. I’ve never quite gotten over it. And my arm never seems to get warm enough; like an ever present hunger to submit to the flames.
We survived until the dawn! And as that sun rose up in the mornin’ two war-torn veterans walked out of that quarried jungle; with tricked out pellet guns and camouflaged army gear!
It was an early Sunday mornin’; the road was as of yet un-traveled.
Sight unseen, we’d meet our journey’s venue. And once the sun had reached its summit we would re-enlist for a final tour of duty. But as for right then and in that moment; two combat weary veterans sojourned home.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
A CHRISTMAS CAROL — Charles Dickens
Eleven
Back Into the Mountain
Truth is constant and ever present. Independent of one’s knowledge or perception, realities can be altered, but truth remains. Imaginations however, knowin’ no boundaries circumvent both reality and truth to avail.
And so the hours passed in sleep as the events of the night faded amidst dreams, thoughts and reason. Pages from a book permeated from within and enveloped my mind. It had been somethin’ I had eaten, nothin’ more.
That would make sense. And it had to make sense! It had to! It had only been a great adventure filled with imaginations! How could it have been anythin’ otherwise?
When the sun set high we made our way upon that graveled road once again, past the rusted crane that kept eternal vigil and past the deserted building that appropriated great emptiness from within its belly. The edifice shown of darkness ingrained with immense feelin’s of dread.
It scared me. I stayed away from it.
Colby threw a rock through one of its remainin’ windows, flouting glass into millions of pieces that fell upon the quarry soil! And the silence was broken.
Curiosity compelled us to go further, to return to the site of the fires.
We had to see if a truth had been uncovered or if imaginations had dealt the deciding hand.
So we took the graveled walk way that led down into the aperture, turnin’ to the right as we reached its floor. The flames that had burned brightly sat to the far side of the hollow against the wood. By daylight it looked far less sinister, a pile of burnt ash surrounded by stones.
Someone had been there. It had not been a ruse.
“So what do you think?” Colby asked.
“I think there is alot more goin’ on here than we’d thought.” I replied.
“Who do you think these people are you reckon?” I asked him.
“Your neighbors most likely, wolves usually hunt close to their dens, been here a long time by the looks of things. Might be why the quarry was shut down all them years ago, intruded upon their hunting grounds I’d bet you.” Colby answered.
Intensely vivid pictures filled my mind then, of neighborhood events and social gatherings; smiles and expressions harboring ulterior meanings of deception.
I saw their faces.
I watched their eyes.
I ran with their children!
I said grace at their tables!
How could they be monsters?
“How can you tell?” I asked him. “How long they’v
e been here, I mean?”
“‘Werewolves’ can live for hundreds of years Toby. They’ve probably been here since the eighteen hundreds, even before the Civil War maybe.” he said. “They might’ve even fought in the Civil War!” he continued.
“You see these markings?” Colby asked as he pointed to patterns carved into the rock. “These weren’t made last night. It would have taken a long time to create them, maybe even years.”
I looked on in amazement.
