by J. Thorn
Gilly Christopher acquired the rights to Williams’ Place in 1929 before the market crash robbed him of his wealth. He hanged himself from a tree near the crypt in the middle of the graveyard. In 1943, Fulton Cambridge signed the paperwork to become the new owner before he was shipped out with the 101st Airborne to die in the D-Day Invasion of the beaches of Normandy. The last attempt at erasing the sordid history of the events of Caroling County came in 1968, when Nathan Stanford got so far as scraping the old paint from the cedar shakes of the house before falling from the ladder and breaking his neck. His body remained on the ground for weeks before anyone realized where he was. The wolves had come down from the hills and devoured all but the man’s overalls and work boots.
Since then, parents in Pine Valley had told their kids to stay away from Williams’ Place. Some went so far as to suggest drinking beer and smoking dope down on Maple Street in the abandoned company town instead of going near the house on the hill. The deed was lost over the years, and the banks that once held it had folded long ago.
***
Kelly knew the history. She had done some of her own research on Williams’ Place for a story that never aired. Although they had never gone so far as to drive out to Williams’ Place, Kelly thought Robert had done so on his own. She had known deep inside, while tied up in the van, that he was bringing her there. She could feel it once she moved past her physical senses and let her spirit tune in to the vibrations. Escape from the van had felt impossible, as if she were destined to arrive at the decrepit house and face the demons within.
Kelly decided that thinking about it any longer would serve no purpose when the howling of the wolves intensified. The sun dropped below the horizon, and the house began to shudder, mostly because of the change in temperature, Kelly told herself. The air inside chilled her, and she felt more exposed than what her naked body could reveal. Kelly tried not to think of the wolves and what they might do. She wanted desperately to shut the bedroom door, to at least keep them at bay for the night. Kelly felt a slow insanity creeping into her skull, seeping through the walls of the house and into her psyche. She wanted nothing more than to barricade herself inside, at the same time escaping and fleeing into the mountains. She could not stay, yet she could not escape.
Kelly closed her eyes, hoping not to see Robert’s corpse, but every time she closed them, she swore she could feel his body reanimating, coming at her in deathly silence. Her eyes would burst open to verify his body had not moved and then drift shut again, and the whole cycle would start over. She wished she could focus on her thirst or hunger. At least that would keep her from dealing with the mental torture. After an undetermined number of slips into unconsciousness, Kelly fought to keep her eyes open and looked around.
The moon had risen, and what little light it shed in the room was of no consolation. Kelly thought she heard the wolves pacing beneath the windows of the front room, working up the courage to enter the house as if they could feel that doing so would be a violation. She would then convince herself that the wolves were not there, that they would not enter, and that train of thought made her shudder. If the wolves weren’t the ones making the noises, who or what was?
The autumn winds blew through the broken windows, each one sounding like a funeral dirge. Kelly kept her head down to her chest until the cramps became too much to bear, and she would shift her body on the floor, careful at first to avoid her own waste but then worried about more disgusting things.
Kelly tried guessing at the time, figuring out how many hours there were until daylight. She thought the mental exercise would distract her from the forces coalescing in the darkness and spare her mind from the inevitable fate. A snort or a snap would come from outside the house, and her fears would be directed back to the wolves and then back to the spirits of the house, and then she would be right back where she started, in an eternal loop of insanity.
As the hours passed, Kelly tried to think of ways to kill herself. There was not enough copper wire behind her back or bungee cords around her wrists to reach her neck. She smiled, thinking how pleasant of a release it would be if she could only hang herself, and then she laughed at the absurdity of the thought. As the night wore on, Kelly’s thoughts became more violent, more desperate. She tried willing her heart to stop, to simply give up inside of her chest. That did not work, either. The scrapings now came from inside the house, the wolves no longer howling in the distance and no longer fearful of crossing the profane threshold.
When Kelly thought she could take no more, that her chest would burst from fear, that was when the real terror began.
***
Frank waved at the people of Pine Valley, and they waved back. He had spent his entire career coming to their homes in response to chest pains, a cat in a tree, and sometimes to pull people out of a fire. Frank made small talk at the grocery store and down at the community center during the annual blood drive.
“I’m fucking done with that,” he said, pulling his silver 2004 Dodge Dakota to the traffic light at the edge of the hospital parking lot. He raised his hand to return a wave to a blue-haired senior citizen leaning on a walker and then pulled it down again and looked in the other direction. “Yep. No more bullshit.”
The light turned green. Frank dropped the truck into first gear and listened to the exhaust rattling through the rusted hole in the muffler. A clacking noise came from the passenger side, where a strut and ball joint would need to be replaced very soon.
“Won’t be taking the truck to Jasper’s place no more!”
A squirrel leapt from a tree near the sidewalk. Frank swerved hard, feeling a slight thump beneath the tires. He looked in the rearview and checked his side mirrors before giggling to himself. He drove through town, ignoring the quick beeps from the citizens that recognized his tired old truck. He drove past the corpse of the mining company and the abandoned houses it had left behind, past the scene of the explosion, where yellow tape fluttered in the breeze. The sodium vapor street lights came on as the sun slid beneath the ancient, rolling vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Frank looked at his phone lying on the seat next to an empty coffee cup and a week-old newspaper. He considered calling Gladys and letting her know he wouldn’t be home tonight but shook his head and kept driving. “Fuck her nagging ass,” he said as he drove farther away from town and deeper into the mountains.
Frank passed Jasper’s place and traveled south on Skyline Drive, not exactly sure where he was headed. The needle on the fuel gauge read three quarters of a tank. By Frank’s calculations, that gave him about a fifty-mile reach, given the Dakota’s gas mileage. He pushed a yellowing tape into the cassette deck in the truck’s dash. The speakers hissed at him like an old tomcat before delivering the propelling rhythm of Johnny Cash’s guitar on “I Walk the Line.” He remembered buying the Best of Cash tape at a truck stop outside Nashville in the 1980s, and somehow the cassette had managed to find its way into every vehicle he had owned since. The insert was long gone, and the plastic case sat on the floor, twisted and faded by years of torture from the Virginia sun.
A car passed Frank in the oncoming lane, a group of teenagers hollering and waving their arms out of the window like frantic garden hoses. The sedan pulled back in front of him. Frank saw the rear window of the car filled with hairy, bare butt cheeks.
“School is in session, motherfuckers,” he said, gunning the powerful V8 engine and feathering the clutch until his front bumper came up to kiss the car’s rear. The shouts and gesticulations from inside the vehicle turned from amusement to outrage. One kid lobbed back a half-empty beer bottle that shattered on the hood of the Dakota. Frank hit the wipers to clear the debris from his windshield. He snarled and yanked the steering wheel hard to the left and pulled alongside the car, trying to keep the truck under control on the windy stretch of scenic highway.
“. . . The fuck, old man?”
Frank heard that and other snippets of profanity as the two vehicles raced down Skyline Drive, w
eaving amongst the sightseers hoping to catch a glimpse of dusk in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He took his foot off the gas and let the teenagers pull ahead. He saw them motioning with their arms to the next exit, and he followed them off the highway. The ramp gradually brought them around and back the opposite direction on a stretch of backcountry road hugging the ridge below Skyline Drive.
The car pulled off the side of the road and into a gravel parking lot with an empty fruit stand at one end. Bob had long since passed away, yet Bob’s Fruit Stand remained, with rotting planks and weeds growing through what used to be the counter. Four kids jumped from the car, slamming doors and waving their fists at him.
The Dakota eased off the highway, and Frank coasted into the dusty lot. His headlights illuminated their faces, turning them into ghostly apparitions. Night was coming as it did so quickly in the mountains. He waited in his car, nurturing a burgeoning erection brought on by the promise of violence.
Yes, Frank thought with a smile on his face. I’m satisfying all of my desires from now on.
He paused as the driver stood outside of the truck at a distance that would allow him to retreat or attack based on what Frank had in his hands. Frank looked at the man, a child, really, and felt another voice inside his head.
I need them. I need them all.
He laughed and looked over a shoulder into the empty quad cab, not really expecting to see anyone. Several of the other kids had now surrounded the truck. One began slapping the front quarter panel with his open palm while yelling at Frank to come out.
I can give you Kelly. Her real flesh, not some shower fantasy. You can fuck her, Frank.
He shook and blinked his eyes. The kids became bolder the longer he sat in the cab. They were now pressing their faces up against the window, one trying to reach through the partially open driver’s side.
But you’ve got to prove yourself first. You must work, and then you can play. Bring me these children and prove your worthiness. Earn your way into Preta’s Realm.
Frank nodded. A wisp of hair fell across his forehead, and he reached under the seat for his heavy-duty flashlight. Frank glanced in the mirror at the empty road, and a huge, silent grin split his face before he spoke. “You’re the boss, Gaki. You’re the boss.”
***
Sage flicked over to Maps and watched the dot blink on the squiggly line representing Interstate 81. She knew she had hours on this highway, which sent an ache of protest through her lower back and into her buttocks before settling in the back of her legs. Although she loved staying up all night, spending it alone in a shitty rental on her way to Hunt was not at the top of her list.
“Head like a hole! Black as your soul! I’d rather die than give you control!” Sage screamed along with Trent as her phone pushed Nine Inch Nails down a thin wire and into the aux port on the stereo system of the car. The left front speaker wasn’t working, and the treble was stuck at ten. It was the best she could do. This vehicle was the only rental car on the lot that she could steal. She thought the company might not even recognize it was gone, as nobody would ask to rent the old beater.
There was nothing coincidental about this song coming up several times on her random playlist. She knew what lay ahead even though she did not have the experience of Mashoka, or of Ravna, for that matter. The demons were nothing but black souls, craving and desiring with no satisfaction. They may have inspired the Rolling Stones, but drug addicts and violence junkies throughout history would not be so fortunate. They would not be able to cash in on the inability to get satisfaction, instead dying or killing others in the pursuit of it. Sage tried to remind herself of some of the early lessons. She thought about Mashoka’s instructions and how he had trained her for the fight.
A sacrifice must be made, and sometimes it is the Hunter who must give.
She was under no illusions about what would happen when she reached the place where they would meet. There would be blood, loss of life, and an exit from this plane. Sage knew there was more. She had a vague recollection of coming through a Portal but not the vivid memories of past localities like Mashoka had.
Sage would miss her friends and hanging out at the coffee shop, although she knew she was destined for more. With her pink highlights, piercings, and tattoos, she played the part of a Riot Grrl as best she could. One boyfriend had even convinced her to submit pics to Suicide Girls, but she had to decline their offer to purchase the photo set to keep from being located by the demons. She could live the life of a normal teenager, but could not make herself visible to hundreds of thousands of evil creatures lying in wait. Gaki had his tentacles in millions, even though most had no clue he was inside their heads.
Her mind kept going back to Mashoka’s message, analyzing and inspecting it as a Hunter would. Sage prided herself on being thorough, competent, and loyal.
You must go right now. You must drive south to the focal point of the new war. Be brave and know that while you have not finished all of your training, you are smart enough and strong enough to defeat Gaki, to destroy Preta’s Realm. Go, my Huntress. Go.
Sage bit her bottom lip and tucked a wisp of black hair behind her ear as “Head Like a Hole” came up again on the random playlist. She was ready, no matter what Mashoka had said. She may not have finished her official training, but she was ready.
The cruise control button lit up again. Sage decided to use it while it was working, as it seemed to stop every other time she killed the engine. She set her cruise speed to seventy and glanced in the mirror. At 2:58 in the morning, there were no other headlights on Interstate 81 in either direction.
Gotta be getting close to the Maryland border, she thought.
Her mind drifted back to Ravna. She had really wanted to fuck him. He was older, probably by twenty years, but he was hot. She’d had to play coy with him, pretend she was nothing more than a gum-cracking college girl trying to earn enough money to pay for books and weekend pot. She had flirted and he flirted back, but she never had the chance. It was probably better that way, too complicated to have Hunters romantically involved. It would have been a liability in the war with the demons. He would pass through the Portal soon. She didn’t know it, but she felt it. In fact, she probably wouldn’t have a chance to speak to him directly again, but Mashoka had told her that Ravna would be important in banishing Gaki, and she had no reason not to believe her teacher.
She caught a glimmer of movement out of her peripheral vision, and it stole the breath from her chest. The stark, white body of the creature shocked Sage and forced her to slam on the brakes and turn the wheel at the same time. She could not think, only react, which sent the car into a fishtail. She brought the wheel around as her training took over, suppressing her fear and emotion. The Huntress steered into it and kept the vehicle from rolling down Interstate 81 and exploding into a ball of flame. When the car came to a stop and she was facing the wrong way, Sage took a deep breath and pulled the car to the shoulder. The beast towered over seven feet tall, its spindly white limbs moving as it loped toward her and closed the gap between them. She could see the blackness in its face, blood and feces dripping from its mouth.
This is only the first of many, Sage heard Mashoka say inside her head.
***
The quiet accusations of witchcraft in Caroling County were consistent with other theories of the time. Several groups emerged, claiming to be the descendants of pagan “witch cults” described by historian Margaret Murray in The God of the Witches. These covens claimed Aradia as their gospel, and whispers about Floyd’s family led back to the New Forest coven. Although the English occultist Gerald Gardner claimed the group worshiped a horned god, those near Pine Valley believed the deity to be much more sinister. Several men accused Floyd’s daughters of “indecent seduction”, with little written record of what that might have meant, although citizens of Caroling County knew enough to keep their distance from the family and leave them to their own devices on top of the hill.
County records showed severa
l attempts at expelling the Williams clan through legal means. Motions were filed by several farmers claiming property line infringement and vandalism, neither charges ever making it before a judge. The continued legal battles against the Williams family, some believed, made Floyd even more bitter and prone to mystical retribution.
The disappearance of Edwin Hubris brought more scrutiny and suspicion to the Williams family. Edwin was born in 1900 to loving parents, an otherwise healthy and happy child. He was last seen near the property line, playing with the Williams girls beneath a tree. The boy went missing, and his body was never found, although his torn and tattered clothes were discovered hanging from an upside-down cross beneath an oak tree high up on the ridge.
***
“What the fuck is wrong with you, old man?”
Frank stood, holding his flashlight and shoving his other hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Wait. I know this dude. He’s the fire chief,” said one of the other boys.
“Former. Former fire chief,” Frank replied.
“I don’t care none who you’s are. You can’t be cuttin’ people off and shit,” the driver said. He and the boy who had been in the passenger seat were moving closer to Frank while the two who had mooned him from the backseat pushed out and around, hoping to cut off his retreat to the truck, where he might be able to grab a weapon.
“The problem with kids these days is they don’t have no respect for their elders. Y’all need to be taught a lesson,” Frank said.
