by Brian Keene
Beyond the fields lay an area known as LeHorn’s Hollow, and beyond that, more dense, expansive woodlands. That area was apparently off-limits. From the cabin’s porch, bright yellow POSTED signs were visible, hanging from a few of the hollow’s outer tree-trunks.
“Did somebody finally buy the LeHorn farm?” Mark pointed at the signs.
“No,” Frank said, twisting the key in the lock. “Those were left over from when LeHorn was still here. We can ignore them.”
“He was an odd one,” Smitty said. “He didn’t have a problem with us hunting on his land, but he always kept that hollow and the area around it posted. He’d get madder than shit if he even saw you walking along the edges between the trees and the corn. Really protective of it. Always wondered if he had a moonshine still or a plot of marijuana down there.”
“I guess he was odd,” Frank agreed, shoving the door open and stepping inside. “He’d have to be wouldn’t he? After all, he killed his wife.”
“Threw her out the attic window,” Glen said.
“Shit,” Smitty said. “That doesn’t make him odd. I wanted to do that a time or two when I was married.”
They shuffled inside the cabin and put their gear down. It was a rustic, simple building, with one large living area, complete with a wood burning stove, a couch that had never been new, a card table, several folding chairs, a portable radio, and a nineteen inch black and white TV with a coat-hanger antennae. A kitchenette stood off to the side, and two bedrooms were in the back, each with two bunk beds.
Glen glanced out the back window. “The outhouse is still standing.”
“Good,” Smitty said. “I’ve gotta take a dump. I’ll go break it in for the year.”
He left, farting as the screen door slammed shut behind him. The others chuckled amongst themselves, and then unpacked. Luke cleaned his Remington 30.06, ramming the rod repeatedly down the barrel, and Mark cleaned his camera, wiping the lens rhythmically with a cloth. They grinned at each other.
“Let’s see if we can get the Penn State game,” Frank said, and tried the TV. Static greeted him as he flipped the dial. Finally, he gave up in frustration. “We’ll try it later.”
Glen fished some batteries from his bag, and put them in the radio. Minutes later, Ozzy Osbourne filtered through the speakers.
“God damn devil music,” Frank said. “Find a country station. Not this noise.”
“You had your way on the drive here, Dad,” Glen said. “And this isn’t noise. You want noise, try listening to what Little Mikey likes. Limp Biscuits or something like that.”
“Don’t know why you let my grandson rot his brain with that stuff, either.”
“If it was up to me,” Glen said, “he wouldn’t be listening to it at all. Cheryl lets him get away with it.”
Mark chuckled. “You sound like Dad did when Mom let you listen to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
Glen grinned, shaking his head.
“Hey, Dad,” Mark said, “remember when Reverend Smith told you that KISS stood for ‘Kings In Satan’s Service’ and you threw away our albums?”
Frank shifted on the couch. “Don’t start with that again. I’ve apologized over and over for that. Christ, that was years ago!”
“Good years, though.” Glen said.
They fell silent, reflecting.
Luke cleared his throat. “I still say that’s why Mark started listening to rap. You sent him from bad to worse, Frank!”
“Oh yeah,” Glen groaned. “We’d be in my room cranking up Motley Crue, and Mark would be squirreled away with Ice T.”
“My wife had on Hollywood Squares the other day,” Luke said. “Ice-T was one of the guests. Had him on there with Elmo from Sesame Street.”
“The guy used to sing about killing cops, and now he’s hanging out with Elmo?”
“Yep.” Luke nodded. “We’re getting old.”
The song ended and the announcer advised them they were listening to Central Pennsylvania’s home for classic rock. Then Bon Jovi wailed about loving somebody always.
“When the hell did Bon fucking Jovi become classic rock?” Glen asked.
“When my generation started dying off,” Frank said. “The World War Two crowd are almost gone. It’s our turn now. Like it or not, you boys are in charge. I just hope you do a better job of it than we did.”
A loud crack split the air, followed by Smitty’s scream.
Glen jumped. “The fuck—”
“Maybe a snake bit him on his fat ass,” Luke said.
They dashed outside and ran towards the outhouse. Mark, Glen, and Luke pulled ahead. Frank stopped, leaning against the side of the cabin and catching his breath. Then, when he saw what had happened, he began to laugh. The others soon joined him.
A muffled shout came from inside the outhouse.
“Quit laughing and get me the hell out of here,” Smitty yelled.
A lofty elm towered over the outhouse, just on the edge of the forest. A broad, thick branch had broken off and landed at the door of the outhouse, effectively trapping Smitty inside. The walls trembled as he slammed against the door. For all of his considerable effort, the limb did not budge.
Chuckling, they cleared it out of the way. Red-faced, Smitty waddled out, holding up his pants with one hand.
Glen doubled over with laughter. “I bet that scared the shit out of you, didn’t it Smitty?”
“I wish it had,” Smitty said, buckling his belt. “But I can’t go at all, now. My butthole is squeezed up tighter than a virgin.”
“Some Jim Beam will fix that,” Luke said.
“Lead on, young man. Lead on.”
They walked back up to the cabin, while the limbs along the tree line stretched away from the evening sun, seeking darkness.
• • •
It was a good night.
They played poker and blackjack and war, and switched back and forth between the country station and the classic rock station. They cheered Penn State, cursed them when they lost to West Virginia, and swore at Luke in between when he snapped the antenna while trying to adjust the picture. They drank beer and ate potato chips and beef jerky and the leftover turkey their wives had packed. Frank fried potatoes with onions and sausage, and they devoured them eagerly, washing the meal down with more beer. Cholesterol did not exist during hunting season. They spoke of deer past, their antlers hanging on the walls around them, and recounted previous trips to the cabin. They talked cars and politics and football and how the union was screwing them worse than the company, and how Mark had it made, working as a magazine photographer in New York City. Glen brought out the tequila and the cards were forsaken for more talk—of glory days, of women other than their wives, and eventually—the war.
Frank and Smitty both grew maudlin after that, and when Luke commented that he figured watching Platoon was pretty close to being there, Frank and Smitty just stared at him quietly.
Soon, however, they were laughing again, as all of the tequila Luke had consumed came back up on the front porch. They rolled him into his bunk, where he promptly passed out, the first official casualty of the night.
They laughed long into the night, and Glen and Mark both thought that they hadn’t seen their father look this alive or this happy in a long time.
They retired before midnight, knowing that four in the morning would come quickly. Smitty stayed awake long enough to drain the tequila, and then, only his great,
racking snores disturbed the stillness outside.
None of them heard the car drive past at a quarter to three, heading toward the LeHorn place.
• • •
“There’s some,” Jason said, scowling at the Explorer parked in front of the hunting cabin. “Bastards.”
“Remind me again,” Joe said, yawning in the back seat, “why we’re up at three in the morning?”
Debbie frowned. “Remind me why you have to come along every time Jason and I go somewhere.”
“Because you love me,” Joe s
aid.
Debbie took a sip of her mocha latte and glared at Jason. “We go to the P.E.T.A. rally, and Joe comes with us. We try a romantic evening at home, and Joe’s downstairs playing Playstation. We went to Ocean City for the weekend, and Joe shared a hotel room with us!”
“Don’t start,” Jason said. “Joe was my friend long before I started dating you.”
“Besides,” Joe said. “I’ve got the weed.”
Furious, Debbie stared out the window at the dark fields and trees. She wished they could just leave Joe along the side of the road. It was an ongoing battle between them. Her girlfriends asked why she put up with it, and there were times when she didn’t know herself. But she loved Jason. It was hard to find a guy that would go along with her to spike trees at a logging project or help deface an animal-testing laboratory.
The Depeche Mode tape ended, and Debbie pressed the seek function on the radio. Snatches of disembodied voices cut through the backwoods-induced static. She heard an infomercial for hair replacement medicine, the twangy strains of a Jerry Reed song, and either a preacher or a conservative talk show host. It was hard to tell which.
“Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes nine, verse three,” the preacher or talk radio host said, “that there is an evil among all things that are done under the sun...”
Jason groaned.
“Chapter eleven says for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth, and if the tree falls toward the south, there it shall be.”
Debbie clicked the radio off.
“Reception is for shit back in these hills,” Jason said. “We’re just about there anyway.”
In the back, Joe’s face was lit with an orange glow as he fired up the bowl. He took a deep hit, coughed, and then offered it to Debbie. She ignored him pointedly.
“Come on, baby,” Jason urged. “Smoke the peace pipe and make up.”
“I don’t want any pot. Christ, we just woke up an hour ago! I need more latté.”
She stretched her feet out and kicked the bag between them. Cowbells jangled inside.
“I still don’t see the sense in this,” Joe said. “Traipsing around in the woods in the dark, ringing cowbells a few hours before dawn? What’s that going to accomplish?”
“It will alert the deer, and scare them off,” Debbie said. “Then, when the hunters get out to the woods, there won’t be anything for them to shoot.”
“Except for us,” Joe said.
Jason laughed. “We’ll be long gone by then, dude.”
They rounded a turn and there was the LeHorn farmhouse, eerily silhouetted in their headlights.
Jason whistled. “Man, this place is really falling apart.”
“Is it true that Nelson LeHorn used to sacrifice animals down in that hollow?” Joe asked.
“No,” Jason said, “that’s all bullshit. Local legend. I mean, the guy was your typical Pennsylvania Dutch farmer. Sure, he slaughtered pigs and cows, but what farmer doesn’t? It’s only because he killed his wife that people say shit like that.”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “Brad Speelman used to date Gina LeHorn, and he said he saw a copy of The Long Lost Friend inside the house once. Some books in German and Latin too. You know—spell books. Something called Daemonolatvian or something like that.”
“Brad Speelman is an idiot,” Debbie said. “The Long Lost Friend is nothing more than a book of folklore and remedies. Like how to cure rheumatism and snake bites. Heather has one. She got it from her grandma before she died.”
Joe grinned. “Isn’t Heather that crazy goth chick that thinks she’s a witch?”
“She’s Wiccan,” Debbie said. “And she thinks you’re an asshole, too, Joe.”
“Fuck you!”
“Knock it off, both of you!” Shutting off the headlights, Jason gripped the wheel. “Dude, do me a favor and stay in the car. We’ll go do our thing, okay?”
He tossed Joe the car keys.
“It’s cool with me bro.” Joe smiled, reloading the bowl from his plastic bag. “You kids have fun.”
Debbie grabbed the bag and they both got out, softly shutting the car doors behind them. Holding hands, the walked across the overgrown yard and into the barren cornfield.
“Watch out for old man LeHorn,” Joe called after them.
Debbie responded with her middle finger, not looking back.
Joe watched the darkness swallow them up, then leaned back, kicked his feet up on the seat, and stretched out.
“Spooky place.”
He looked around. The distance between the house and the barn was one long shadow. The fields reminded him of NASA’s pictures of the Mars landscape. The buildings and the car sat under watchful stars, with nothing moving. Far away in the distance, a tree loomed, tall and menacing.
Menacing, Joe thought. How the hell can a tree be menacing? Must be the weed.
Joe closed his eyes and fell asleep.
• • •
“Why are we whispering?” Debbie clutched Jason’s hand.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Everything just seems so small out here. Quiet.”
“Only for a few more hours. Then it’ll be nothing but gunshots and rednecks.”
“Well, let’s fix it so there’s nothing for them to shoot at.” He paused, gazing up at the night sky. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is.”
They trudged on in silence, drawing closer to the hollow.
Debbie shivered inside her fleece jacket. “It’s so cold out here, though.”
“Well, how about when we’re done, I warm you up?”
“We can’t.” She let go of his hand and sped up, walking past him. “You had to bring Joe along.”
“God dammit, Deb—”
Approaching the tree line, Debbie pulled a cowbell out of the bag. Parting the low branches, she stepped into the darkness. The branches rustled back into place.
Sighing in exasperation, Jason hurried to catch up with her. Inside the forest, he heard her cowbell. It sounded farther away than he would have guessed.
“Hey, Debbie, wait up! You’ve got my bell in that bag, too.”
When she didn’t respond, Jason swore, wondering again why he went along with Debbie’s animal rights nonsense. Hell, his father hunted, and he wasn’t a bad guy.
The things I do just to get laid on a regular basis...
He pushed through the branches and thorns, stepping into the forest. The ground sloped steadily downward. There was no sign of Debbie, and the cowbell was silent. The stillness was disturbing. To Jason, it felt like the hollow was holding its breath.
“Debbie?”
The tree limbs rustled softly above him, but no breeze disturbed them. Somewhere below him, farther down in the hollow, a twig snapped. It seemed as loud as a gunshot in the stillness. Jason jumped, backing up a few steps. Another twig snapped, followed by the rustle of leaves.
“Come on, Debbie, quit messing around! Where the hell are you?”
As if in answer, the cowbell rang sharply, but farther down the hill. He stomped off in that direction, and more twigs snapped directly behind him. He began to half jog, half slide down the slope. Ahead of him, the cowbell pealed continuously.
“Give it a rest!” Thorns tore at his jacket. “I think the deer got the message.”
The clamor continued. Oddly, it now sounded as if it was coming from above him.
Jason barreled the rest of the way down the slope, splashing through a half-frozen stream. Icy water flooded his sneakers, chilling his toes. Gasping, he jumped to the other side.
The cowbell echoed off the trees surrounding him, but there was no sign of Debbie. He spun in a circle as the shrill ringing grew frantic.
Then he looked up.
And screamed.
Debbie dangled fifteen feet above him, her blue fleece now crimson and tattered. A gnarled tree limb jutted from between her breasts, and another had punched through her abdomen. The cowbell hung from a third branch. As Jason shrieked her
name, the branch shook back and forth, ringing the bell again.
Something snapped behind him—something bigger than a twig.
The bell continued to ring long after his screams had ceased.
• • •
Mark awoke to his father shaking his shoulder. He blinked sleep dust from his eyes.
“What time is it?”
“Four o’clock,” Frank told him. “Better get up before your brother and Luke drink all the coffee.”
Yawning, Mark sat up, shivering as his bare feet hit the cold floor. The others were already dressed, decked out in flannel shirts, camouflage jackets, and bright orange hunting vests. Glen and Luke sipped coffee while Frank laced up his boots.
Bleary-eyed, Mark looked around the cabin. “Where’s Smitty?”
“Outhouse.” Luke cocked his thumb. “He’s sick as a dog. Too much tequila.”
“We weren’t going to leave you any bacon or eggs,” Glen said, “but Dad insisted.”
“So what’s the plan?” Mark pulled jeans on over his long johns.
“I figure I’ll work the hollow,” Luke said. “Smitty can walk the cornfields and between us, we ought to flush something.”
“We’ll head across the road,” Frank said. “Over to that ridge that runs along the top. Hook up with that logging road the trucks use, and then work our way back down to the LeHorn place.”
The door opened and Smitty walked in, followed by a frigid blast of air.
“Colder than a witch’s titty out there,” he huffed.
“You look like hell,” Frank told him. “Feel any better?”
“I’ll live,” the big man replied, wincing as Glen shoved a plate of eggs and bacon floating in grease under his nose.
Impatiently, they allowed Mark ten minutes to get dressed and eat. He grabbed his camera and the rest of their rifles. Then they stood on the porch, basking in the cold, blue pre-dawn world.
