The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville

by Brian L. Blank

  Sly was silent, reflecting for a few seconds. "Maybe you'd better tell me where we're going first," he said. "I think I want to know exactly what it is that I've gotten myself into."

  "Can't." If I told him now, he would want to call the police. "At least not until we're on our way. Then, if you decide you don't want to go, I'll manage by myself. But we are going to need some type of a weapon. And flashlights would be a great asset."

  Sly's eyebrows shot up. "Randy," he said under his breath. "Hold on a second. I think I have what you're talking about." He ran up the stairs and returned only seconds later. "Will this help?" He showed me a gun and a box of shells. "It's only a .22 caliber, but it'll still sting."

  "When did you get this?" I said, taking the gun from him and rolling it in my hands.

  "Julie was against the idea from the start," he replied. "But I convinced her we needed some sort of self defense if anyone came after us."

  He went into the kitchen and returned with a flashlight. "There's another one in the car we can use. All set?"

  I handed him back the gun. "You know," I said, "if you introduce a gun in the first act you must use it by the last."

  He shoved it into the front of his pants. "Where did you ever hear that?"

  "In a play writing class back when I was in college," I replied. "But that's fiction, isn't it."

  Sly handed me the gun again. "Maybe you should hold onto it. You're the one with the lame arm. I'll get myself a knife from the kitchen."

  I held loosely onto the gun while he was out of the room. When he returned with a short knife, I shoved the gun into the front of my pants, like Sly had just done. "I don't plan on killing him," I said. "I only want to get Melissa back."

  His eyebrows shot up for the second time that night. "Melissa is with him?"

  "I don't know for sure," I replied. "It's just this hunch I've been carrying around with me from the minute you told me she had left and didn't come back. If she's not with him, then it's back to square one. And I really don't want to think about that possibility right now."

  "I see," he said. The hope that had been written in his eyes disappeared.

  Sly let me drive while he sat silently staring out his side window. He didn't have his pipe with him, and, for some reason I couldn't fathom, that bothered me. I could tell by his expression that he was having second thoughts. As we headed past the city limits, he confirmed this.

  "Maybe we should let the police handle this," he said, turning to face me. "We might do more harm than good."

  "And if he has Melissa with him and the police storm him," I replied. "What do you think he will do with her?"

  Sly nodded. "Maybe you're right." He looked back out the window. We were approaching the turn off onto County Trunk DD. "Can you tell me where we’re headed yet?"

  "Wickerman's," I replied. "I saw him going into the barn behind the house. I'm hoping he's asleep by now. Then, what else could he be doing with his late nights? We should be able to catch him by surprise. If he's knows we’re on to him, there's no telling what he may do to Melissa."

  "If she's even with him."

  "If she's even with him," I repeated his statement, trying to drill in the possibility.

  I turned onto County Trunk DD and drove past the tavern. Only three cars littered its parking lot, when usually there'd be more than twenty. Yet, usually, the town wasn't operating under this constant threat of horror. After tonight, I thought, that will change. Dodsville won't live in fear any more.

  A few hundred yards in front of Wickerman's, while I still had the forest blocking its view, I stopped and turned the car around so it was facing in the direction home. It's what Reed and I used to do with our bikes, and it had become habit. I pulled alongside the ditch and shut off the ignition. Sly and I only stared ahead out the windshield for a minute in silence.

  "Well," I said at length. "This is it."

  Sly opened his door without replying and stepped outside. I joined him after dropping the car keys under the seat. I made sure the gun was securely placed under my belt and grabbed the flashlight. I turned it off and on a couple of times to make sure it worked properly, then I ran to catch up to Sly.

  "What's your hurry?" I asked, walking alongside him.

  He stopped. "Just a minute." He ran back to the car and pulled something out of the glove box. When he returned he brandished his kitchen knife. "I may need this."

  I nodded, and we started forward again. The night was still muggy, and sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped it away with the sleeve of my short-sleeve T-shirt. Lightning bugs flashed in the weeds alongside the highway, trying to attract a mate. Mosquitoes buzzed around the back of my neck and ears, but I did my best to ignore them. The moon was full, or close to it. Even though its light made us easily visible out in the open like we were, I felt more comfortable with it. The lightness made the night seem less ominous.

  As we approached the driveway, we slipped into the forest. When the house came into view through the trees, Sly tapped me on the shoulder from behind and motioned for me to head toward the house first. Sly ran across the highway with his head low, and I followed.

  "So, what's your plan?" he asked as we stood in front of the house, hiding ourselves from the barn.

  I didn't have a plan. I thought for a moment before something came to me. I remembered the layout of the barn from when I was a kid and we had entered it on a dare--in broad daylight, of course. "There's a slot around back of the barn," I said. "Give me a couple of minutes to reach it. Then you come in the front way, silently, and we'll split up and look for Beliwitz. I'm assuming the barn is full of hay this time of year, so I'll take the mow on your left, and you can take the other. If you find him first, tackle him and get your knife against his neck. If I find him first, I have the gun, so there shouldn’t be a problem." I knew it wasn't much of a plan to go on, but it's all we had.

  "Give me three minutes to get into place," I instructed, and started for the barn.

  "Stephen," Sly whispered from behind me. "Be careful."

  I slid alongside of the house, being careful not to walk past any windows upright. Not that I was afraid Randy would see me, as I was positive he was hiding in the barn, but because I couldn't shake the memory of what had happened in there when I was eleven. I pushed out all other thoughts than the one where I find Melissa. I had no doubts about my feelings for her now--I was in love with her. And she was missing because she had fallen in love with me. If only I hadn't been so blind!

  I sprinted the distance from the house to the barn, and set out for the break in the wall in back of it. The weeds were high, reaching over my waist, and I could almost feel the wood ticks landing on me and digging in. Mosquitoes relentlessly bit me on the back of my neck, and I kept brushing them away. I ignored the itching.

  I turned the corner and walked along the back of the barn. As I came to the area where some boards were broken away, I drew the gun from my pants and held it in front of me. Taking a deep breath first, I quickly slid through the slot and into the barn.

  The structure was dark inside. Too damn dark. A little moonlight trickled through cracks in the roof and sides, but it didn't seem to be enough. Finding Beliwitz wouldn't be an easy task. Having one arm in a cast was handicap enough, but groping around in darkness was going to make it lamentably more difficult to catch him. Hay bales were stacked neatly on both sides of me, reaching practically to the roof. The musty, pungent odor of stale hay caused my breaths to become shorter. Randy was hiding up there in one of those two haymows. I had a sinking feeling, though, that Melissa wasn't in here. Escape would have been too easy for her.

  The door on the other side of the barn opened briefly, and the silhouette of Sly against the bright moonlit background behind him entered. When he closed the door again, I could barely make him out against the backdrop of the barn. He waved in my direction, and I waved back with the gun. He pointed to the haystack on his right and began climbing the one on his left. I took
the hint and climbed the other side. Heavy vertical beams reached from the floor to the ceiling, and two-by-sixes cut horizontally across them. The gaps between the boards varied between one and two feet, so climbing was fairly easy. I had to stuff the gun back into my pants, and grab onto the boards ahead of me with only my right hand, but it wasn't that difficult. I had climbed these same mows when I was a child, though with much more ease. The boards were several years older now, and they creaked like an old man's knees when I placed my weight upon them. If Randy was awake, or even a light sleeper, he was now warned that we were here. I could easily hear the boards on the other side creaking when Sly stepped on them.

  I climbed over the last board and fell flat onto the hay, not wanting Randy to make out my outline in case he was awake and watching. Sly must have reached his summit also, as I could no longer see him against the hay. I slowly got up on my knees. My haystack reached to the end of the barn, about thirty yards away. It was stacked evenly, and I saw no bumps or depressions anywhere. Yet, I was sure that Randy would have dug out a little niche, so he wouldn't be spotted from eye level.

  Keeping it pointed in front of me, with my finger firmly on the trigger, I was ready to use the pistol in case Randy jumped out of the hay at me. Not that I actually wanted to shoot him; I did not want to take even the slightest chance that I would kill him--at least not until he told me where he had Melissa. She could easily be stashed under a few bales of hay, tied and gagged like a Thanksgiving turkey ready for the oven.

  I moved forward, but it was too dark. I would need to be right on top of Randy before I could even see him. And I knew that if I took out the flashlight from my back pocket and flashed it around inside the barn, Beliwitz would spot me easily and pick me off. Anyway, if he was awake he knew where I stood now and was only waiting for a good shot. Yet there was nothing I could do about that, so I moved on.

  Suddenly, as I was about to give up and head back down, a scuffle ensued from Sly's side of the mow. I grabbed my flashlight out of my pocket and shined it over to the other side. I couldn't see anything. Not until Sly stuck his head out of a pit and waved at me.

  "What are you waiting for?" he asked. "He's subdued already. The hard parts over." Then he ducked back down.

  "What the fuck are you doing here, Sly?" Randy said. Though I couldn't see him, it was definitely his voice.

  I shoved the gun back into my pants, and proceeded carefully back down the mow. The descent was easier than the climb had been, but I had to keep telling myself not to rush it. One slip and not only would I rebreak my left arm, I would end right back in the hospital.

  "Where's Melissa?" Sly shouted as I reached the boards on the other side and began the climb.

  I heard no reply from Beliwitz, but I was grunting pretty heavily now and I may have drowned out his voice. Upon reaching the pinnacle of the stack, using my flashlight to make sure I didn't step in any holes, I ran over the tops of the bales to where Sly had Randy. The struggle between the two of them had kicked up some dust from the old hay, and I could feel it sticking to my sweat-soaked skin and filling my nostrils.

  I stopped at the edge of the pit, just to catch my breath before dealing with the bastard below me. Sly was kneeling on top of Randy, holding his knife at Randy's throat. Randy was red-faced and angry. Pieces of hay stuck to his face, adding almost a humorous quality to the situation. There was some blood right below his left eyes from a scratch, and his eyes showed more fear than anger. He lay on an old army blanket. Beside him were some empty beer cans, some burger wrappers from McDonald’s, and a portable radio.

  He tried to get up from under Sly when he saw me standing over him, but Sly held the knife closer to his throat and forced him back down. Randy spit out a piece of hay and pointed up at me. "You killed her!" he yelled. "You killed my Tabitha."

  I jumped down into the pit, barely missing his face. "Why, you slime." I poked the gun into his chest. "You killed her yourself. You meant to blow me up in that car, but you ended up only killing Tabby."

  He struggled to get up again, but I pulled back the hammer of my pistol and he relaxed. Sly got off him and stood next to me, shining his flashlight in Randy's face.

  "Where's Melissa?" I asked, rather calmly I thought.

  "What the hell are you talking about? I had nothing to do with her disappearance." He sat up and leaned back against the hay. "Whoever took all those other people must have her."

  There was fear in his eyes. As he talked he looked only at the pistol, not at me.

  "If you don't tell me where she is," I said, "or even if you really don't know, then I'm going to kill you. Understand?"

  Some hay fell from above and landed in his hair. He brushed it away, and held up both hands in front of him. "I'm sorry about your grandmother," he said, his voice cracking slightly. He sounded almost on the edge of tears. "I really didn't mean--"

  "Shut-up!" I kicked him hard in his side. He winced, but made no move to retaliate. I felt a smile form on my own face. Here was my chance to get even--but after he told where he had Melissa stashed. I bent over until I was only two inches from his face. "WHERE IS MELISSA?" I yelled as loud as I could.

  Randy didn't even flinch. "I DON'T KNOW!"

  Sly moved a step farther away from me as I stood, as if sensing my excessive anger. "You killed Tabitha," he said, to Randy. He spoke softly. "And Stephen's grandmother. And even Reed."

  Randy flinched at that last accusation from Sly. "I killed no one," he said, deliberately. "Do you hear me? No one!"

  "So, my car blew up by itself?" I said. "The fragments of explosives found at the scene walked there by themselves?"

  "I swear I didn't do that," Randy said, shaking his head. His face had become almost completely covered with the hay dust. "You know I wouldn't take the chance that Tabitha would be with him," he said, to Sly. Then he turned to face me. "And I only meant to frighten your grandma, not kill her. How was I supposed to know about her heart condition? And about Reed," he said, not looking at either Sly or me. "He fell into the water after I pushed him. He must have hit his head or something, because he didn't come up. It was dark and I couldn't find him. But I tried." He looked up at us. "I did. I really did."

  The pleading, innocent expression on his face almost made me wonder if he wasn't telling me the truth. Almost.

  "Last chance," I said, "I'm not buying it. So, just tell me where you stashed Melissa." I lowered the gun to his knee. "You've terrorized this little town long enough, Beliwitz."

  Randy's eyes wavered from the gun and back to me. "You can't believe I'm behind everything that's happening?" His tone was incredulous, almost convincing.

  He's not telling me where Melissa is because he's already killed her, I thought. Inside I felt my anger growing beyond my control. I pictured in my mind the image of Tabby burning up in my car, and my anger bubbled over the rim. I squeezed the trigger of the gun, feeling like it was someone else rather than me doing it, and the gun went off. Blood splattered from Randy's knee through his jeans as the bullet tore through his leg. He screamed, grabbed his bloodied knee, and rolled spastically around in the pit.

  Sly looked at me with an expression of disbelief, saw something in my own expression, and backed away. He climbed out of the pit, as if to say he wanted no part of what I had just done. But he didn't say a word.

  "Now," I said to Randy, who had stopped screaming, but was still whimpering, "are you ready to tell me?"

  He lay still on his back, holding his leg in his cupped hands, and grimaced up at me. I wanted to kill him, complete the job. Yet, I held back. There was still the possibility that Melissa was alive. He would tell me now. Now that I had proven my seriousness.

  I pointed the gun at Randy's face. His entire body quivered in response, though most likely from the pain of his knee than from fear of me. I could see the combination of fear and pain in his eyes. "Tell me," I said, pulling back the hammer for a second time that evening. "Or I kill you."

  Randy moaned and held out a
bloody hand in front of him. "I don't know," he said. Then he began to cry.

  "Then I'll just kill you for the hell of it." The feeling inside of me that Melissa wasn't anywhere near here rose up again.

  "No," Randy whined, turning away from me. ''Please."

  Sly jumped back down into the pit and put a hand on my shoulder. "It's no use, Stephen," he said, placatingly. "Why wouldn't he tell you now if he knew?"

  "But what about Tabby?"

  "I tell you I didn't plant that bomb," Randy said, now sobbing again. "I swear."

  "Let it go," Sly said. He reached out for the gun.

  I held the gun firmly in my hand, pointing it at Randy's temple.

  Randy stopped crying and wiped away the tears from his cheeks. "Go ahead then," he said calmly. "Kill me."

  "Really, Stephen," Sly said, still holding out his hand for the gun. "You've done all you can. A murder charge would put you away forever. And then you will never find Melissa. Is that what you want? Is killing him worth all that?"

  I released the hammer and eased it back in place; then handed the gun to Sly. "Doesn't matter," I said. Unused tears clouded my eyes.

  Melissa was gone forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

  More Questions

  Sly ripped his own shirt and made a tourniquet out of it. He tied it tightly around Randy's leg while Randy quietly sobbed. His entire pants leg was soaked with blood, and his hands were a bright red. I knew I should have felt some guilt for what I did to him, but I couldn't. I stood outside the pit, shining my flashlight down into it. Randy's knee was pointing at a peculiar angle; most likely, I thought, he would walk with a limp for the remainder of his life. He would be reminded daily of what he had done, and maybe he would live long enough to regret it.