by Brian Keene
The air had killed their father. Not the Agent Orange spiraling through his system. The air.
“Mom will come looking for us,” Glen babbled. “Or Luke. Luke’s probably bagged a big old buck by now, Mark. He’ll drag it back soon, and then we’ll be saved.”
As the second day of the siege had worn on, the three of them had become nervous and irritable. Mark hadn’t noticed at first. The current situation allowed for those feelings. But all three of them then suffered excruciating headaches and had trouble breathing. Frank struggled especially hard. Each labored breath became a struggle for him. And then Mark had noticed the ozone smell. He remembered a term from college—hyper-oxygenated.
The trees had surrounded the cabin in a tight ring. Then, they had begun to accelerate their photosynthetic processes, pumping out pure oxygen.
Mark remembered something else from college. Oxygen was flammable.
Frank had died an hour ago. His chest gave one final, heroic heave and then stopped. Mark was silently glad that his brother’s sanity had gone before his father had.
“It’s the second day of deer camp, and all the guys are here...” Glen sang happily, staring at nothing.
Mark closed his father’s eyes and wept. All it would take was just one spark.
“We drink our beer and shoot the bull, but never shoot no deer.”
Mark crawled towards the stove. Rising to his feet, he felt around, searching. Alerted by the sound of his movements, branches began to skitter outside. Beneath his feet, roots clawed under the hardwood floor, looking for an entrance into the cabin. They had shoved mattresses and dressers against the broken windows, and now they creaked and rattled as they were pressed against from outside.
“It’s the second week of deer camp...”
Mark’s fingers closed around a box of wooden matches. Hands shaking, he opened it, spilling them to the floor.
Outside the pounding began.
“Pure oxygen, Glen. That’s what they’re pumping in here. And all it takes is just one spark.”
Glen stopped singing and looked up. “Daddy’s sleeping.”
“Why don’t you go to sleep, too, big bro?”
“Okay, Mark. I’m very tired.” He closed his eyes.
Mark lit the match.
STORY NOTE: Another early story, and the start of my LeHorn’s Hollow mythos, which eventually led to the novels Dark Hollow and Ghost Walk. This story takes place between “Stone Tears” and Dark Hollow. The next story takes place after those two novels.
The cabin is based on my family cabin, built by my father on a plot of land in West Virginia that’s been in our family for generations. And much like Mark in this story, I’m not a hunter. They took me deer hunting when I was fourteen, and I escaped back to my Dad’s truck, where they found me later reading Micronauts and Rom comic books.
THE GHOSTS OF MONSTERS
The moon peeked down through the treetops.
“That’s weird.”
“What?”
“The moon is red.”
Roy shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”
“Wonder what made it do that?” Sally mused. “Pollution, maybe?”
“It’s a hunter’s moon,” he explained. “That’s what my daddy and my grandpa used to call it.”
“Were they hunters?”
Smiling, Roy nodded. “Best damn hunters you’ve ever seen.”
“How about you? Do you hunt?”
“Sure.”
“Ever hunt here?”
“In LeHorn’s Hollow? Nope, not yet. I usually hunt in Adams County, out by Gettysburg. I need to find a new place, though. There’s too much posted property and the game are all skittish.”
Roy ducked under a low-hanging branch and then pulled it out of the way until Sally had passed by. Then he performed a mock bow, making a sweeping gesture with his arm.
Sally giggled. “Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure.”
They continued down the narrow, winding trail, heading deeper into the forest. The woods were dark and still. There were no birds or insects. Neither one of them minded. That just meant that their impromptu midnight stroll was mosquito-free.
Roy gripped the flashlight in one hand, moving the beam back and forth in front of them. An old blanket was tucked into the crook of his arm. His other hand held Sally’s. Her long, pink nails grazed against his skin, making him shiver with excitement. The crotch of his jeans seemed to grow smaller—more confining. His erection strained against the zipper.
“This isn’t really the hollow,” Sally said. “That’s miles from here, near that ghost walk where all those people died last year. The real hollow is all burned down now.”
“Yeah, but this is still part of the same forest. People call it LeHorn’s Hollow, even if the actual hollow isn’t there anymore.”
“How come you never hunted here?”
Roy shrugged. “Never had the chance before. I live all the way out in Hanover. I don’t get to this side of the county very often.”
“So what brought you out this way tonight, then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Tired of drinking at the same old bar, I guess. Needed a change of scenery. Figured I’d see how things looked out this way.”
Sally gave her hips a little shake. “And have you liked what you’ve seen?”
“So far.”
“Me, too. I’m glad you decided to have a drink in my regular bar.”
“You go there often?”
“Every Friday night. You come back next week, and I’ll be waiting. Maybe we can do this again.”
“Well, we didn’t do anything yet.”
“The night is young.”
Roy smiled. His erection grew harder.
“So, are you married?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “Nah. Only men in my life are my father and my two brothers. You’d like them. They’re big hunters, too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Every year, they take a week off work for deer season and go up to Potter County.”
Roy paused, let go of her hand, and lit a cigarette. He offered Sally one, but she declined.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got some of those Listerine thingies in my pocket.”
She took his hand again and squeezed. “I don’t mind. And besides, those things burn if you—”
“What?”
She seemed flustered. “If you put one on your tongue, and then go down on somebody, it burns.”
Roy’s laughter echoed through the darkness. When he shined the flashlight on Sally, she was blushing.
“Don’t laugh.” She punched his arm playfully.
“Don’t worry. I won’t put one on my tongue if you don’t want me to.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that a promise of things to come?”
“We’ll be doing more than that, soon as we find a good spot.”
“I still don’t understand why we had to come all the way out here.”
“Well, not to be rude, but I don’t want to get stuff on my upholstery.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Now it was Roy’s turn to seem flustered. “You know. Bodily fluids...”
Sally snickered. “You’re really something, Roy. I’m glad I met you tonight.”
“So am I.”
“Still, I don’t know why we couldn’t have just spread that old blanket out in the cab of your truck.”
He swept the flashlight beam in a wide arc, letting it glide across the dark tree trunks and boulders. “And miss all this ambience?”
“Aren’t you afraid of the monsters?” Sally teased.
Roy snorted in derision. “What monsters?”
“Oh, come on. You’ve never heard all the legends about these woods? The Goat-Man who plays his pipes at night and seduces women? That writer guy from Shrewsbury supposedly went nuts while working on a book about him.”
“Write
r guy—the one who escaped from the nuthouse last year and killed those people on the ghost walk?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he was bat-shit crazy.”
“But he wasn’t the only one who was supposed to have seen the Goat-Man. And there’s more. The black hound dog with red eyes. Balls of light that float around through the forest. Ghosts. Demons. And some people say that the trees move on their own.”
“It’s all bullshit,” Roy said. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”
“You don’t believe any of the stories about this place?”
“Well, I know that a lot of people have died here over the years. But that doesn’t mean it was monsters. It was just people acting like people. Human beings are evil enough. We don’t have to invent stories about monsters. Why? Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff?”
Sally pouted. “I don’t know...a little, maybe.”
Roy stopped in the middle of the trail, and shined the beam across the ground. He released her hand, sat the flashlight down on a rock, and unfolded the blanket. “This looks like a good spot.”
“You read my mind.”
“Come here.”
He pulled her close. They kissed, tongues entwining hungrily. Their hands explored each other’s bodies. Sally shivered.
“You cold?”
She nodded, nuzzling his chest. “A little. And a little nervous. I mean, we just met.”
“You sure that’s all?”
“Well what else would it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re afraid of the Goat-Man.”
She hugged him tighter. “You’ve got to admit, it is a little creepy out here at night.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “There are no monsters in LeHorn’s Hollow.”
Then he pulled out the knife and stabbed her in the neck. He let her body sag onto the blanket, and watched it jerking and twitching. Sally’s eyes were wide. She clawed at the hilt jutting from her throat, and made faint gobbling noises. Her hands grew slick with her own blood. Roy could no longer contain his excitement. He pulled down his zipper and let his erection bob in the cool night air.
“No monsters,” he repeated. “Just hunters, like me. The monsters are all ghosts now. I’m the real thing.”
STORY NOTE: This was written for the special lettered edition of Ghost Walk. It takes place a year after the events of that book. I think it has a real Richard Laymon and Ed Gorman vibe to it, which pleases me to no end.
SLOUCHING IN BETHLEHEM
Joe woke up when Mary screamed.
For a moment, he couldn’t remember why he was lying in an alley. It all came back to him with her second scream. Joe shut his eyes, stuffing his fingers in his ears to block the sound. He wished that he could fall back asleep.
Nearby, the cardboard walls of their makeshift home rustled. He considered rushing inside and stopping what was happening, but they needed the money. Instead of stopping it, he shuffled out to the sidewalk, draining the last of the cheap wine. He flung the bottle into the gutter, broken glass crunching inside the brown paper bag.
There was a dull ache in his head, where the stranger had touched him before he fell asleep. He leaned against a lamppost, trying to clear his mind. The street was deserted. Traffic in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was never exactly abundant at this time of night, but he found himself wishing now that someone would drive by.
A yellowed scrap of last week’s newspaper floated by. Joe spied the headline in the moonlight: HEROD SUSPECTED IN TWELFTH NEWBORN MURDER
Herod, the serial killer terrorizing the small city with a wave of infanticide, was one of the things they didn’t have to worry about when living on the streets. Violence in the Middle East, the gutted economy, the new law calling for mandatory census participation, who the President was banging in the Oval Office—none of these things mattered out here. He’d assured Mary of this time and time again. All that mattered was the two of them—and scoring crack from Andre or one of the other hustlers.
Mary cried out again. Joe wasn’t sure if it was from pleasure or pain, fear or ecstasy. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. In contrast, the stranger inside the cardboard shelter with her was silent.
Life in the alley behind the adult video store had been good until this moment. They hadn’t always been homeless, of course. Joe had once worked as a carpenter, and Mary had been a waitress. They’d been poor, but shared a love for one another.
And a love for crack.
It was that second love that had eventually brought them here. The descent led from their run-down apartment to a series of shelters—each one more heinous and decrepit than the last—before finally depositing them on the streets, in the shadow of Bethlehem’s abandoned steel mills.
They tried to find refuge in one of the vacant factories or warehouses, but tribes of other homeless people had staked those out, and viciously defended them. Strangers were not welcome there, so Joe built a shelter out of cardboard boxes and scrap wood, using what little remained of his carpenter’s skills.
When the gnawing pain in their stomachs became too much, they went to the soup kitchen, or the alley behind the Chinese restaurant. When hunger was replaced with the need for nicotine, they waited outside the courthouse; circling like scavenger birds as the yuppies exited their cars, lit up, took three quick puffs, and then deposited the remainder on the sidewalk before entering the building. On a good day, they could gather the half-smoked equivalent of a carton.
More important than hunger or nicotine, though, was the constant craving for more rock. That need had been especially bad when the stranger arrived.
From the moment his long shadow slid down the alley, Joe knew he wasn’t from the hood. A silhouette in streetlights, the stranger stood tall and proud, seemingly unaware that he was in the worst section of the city.
Unaware or unable to care. Joe couldn’t tell which, and didn’t really give a fuck. The guy was probably an easy mark.
“Yo,” Joe said, “you got some spare change?”
The figure stepped deeper into the alley. “Perhaps, I can offer you something better than spare change.”
Joe caught a trace of an accent, but couldn’t identify it.
Mary gripped Joe’s forearm. “I don’t like the looks of this guy. I bet he’s a cop.”
“How about that?” Joe asked. “You five-oh?”
“I am a soldier.” The stranger spread his arms, palms turned upward, and smiled. “I have fought the Babylonians and the Sumerians, and bathed in Assyrian blood. I soared through the clouds while the first deluge covered the Earth, and while Sodom and Gomorrah burned—and again for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Joe had only a dim knowledge of anything past Fifth Street, but he nodded as if he understood.
“You a fighter pilot, then? Well, God bless you for that.”
“God does indeed bless me, for I serve His will.” The man moved closer, and his shadow covered them. “He is about to bless you, as well.”
“How’s that?”
“What is your name?”
“Joe.”
“And this is your woman?”
“Yeah, Mary’s with me.”
“I would like five minutes alone with her.”
Mary shrank back against the wall.
Joe jumped up, his fists clenched. “What kinda’ shit you been smoking, talking to us like that?”
“I’ve no quarrel with you, friend. Indeed, I have traveled far to reach you. Farther than you might imagine. Do not misunderstand. My request is simple. Allow me five minutes with your woman, and you will both be richly rewarded.”
Joe turned to Mary, and saw the fear and disbelief in her eyes. He crouched down beside her.
“We need the money, baby,” he said. “Andre ain’t gonna give us no freebies. We’re both jonesing. Dude only wants five minutes. Says he’ll pay.”
Mary frowned. “So you’re my pimp now? Fuck you!”
“It ain’t like that, Mary. You know I lov
e you. But we got no choice. We need to score and we need money to do it. It’s just one time. Five minutes, baby! Five minutes and then we can find Andre and hook up.”
Before she could answer, he turned back to the stranger.
“Five minutes, right?”
“Correct. I will not harm her.”
“You got a deal.”
“Excellent.” The stranger stepped forward. His hand darted out, fingers pressing into Joe’s forehead.
“Sleep.”
Joe’s last thought, before collapsing to the pavement, was that he hadn’t asked the stranger how much he was paying.
• • •
Quivering in the darkness, Mary held the stranger tightly even after it was over.
“Damn,” she whispered. “That wasn’t what I expected. What’s your name?”
The man smiled, slipping back into his business suit. “It is never wise to ask for someone’s name. Names have power. That is one of the most important universal laws. It is better to ask what one prefers to be called.”
She shook her head and stretched, relishing the feeling of satisfaction that washed over her. “So what are you called, then?”
“I am called many things. It depends on many factors. Some call me Djibril, of the El-Karrubiyan, those brought near to Allah. Others call me Gabriel, of the Cherubim.”
“Cherubim,” she repeated, pulling her soiled jeans over her scabbed, scrawny legs. “Never heard of it. You a stock broker or something?”
“Hardly.” His laughter was melodious.
“Well, now that you told me your real name, doesn’t that give me power, like you said?” Visions of blackmail swam in her head. Headlines trumpeting: WALL STREET TYCOON IN TRYST WITH HOMELESS WOMAN. She finished dressing.
“I have indeed given you power, Mary, but not as you suspect. You are highly favored by our Lord, and unto you has been given His highest blessing. Even now, you are with child—His child. You are to name him Prosper, for his birth will usher in a new age of prosperity for those favored by the Lord, even at the worst hour. His middle name is to be Christ, which means teacher, for that is what he will be. He is to educate the world, before the trials begin. Understand something. We are undoing a terrible mistake. The Trinity has been split asunder for too long now. We are rejoining it.”
