Devil's Oven

by Laura Benedict

  Hearing her mother’s voice, she looked around, but couldn’t see her.

  She jumped up.

  “Mama?”

  She peered around the wild hedge of rhododendrons that grew at the western edge of the site. Her mother stood facing a man who looked like a giant. The giant was staring at her mother, smiling. But it wasn’t a good kind of smile. He looked like he wanted to eat her.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” her mother called to her. “He’s not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  Should she believe her? Her mother didn’t lie. Not even about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or if there were peas in the shepherd’s pie. Still, there was something wrong with the man. He wasn’t someone they knew. Strangers up on the mountain weren’t safe. Thora told her all the time that there might be strangers on the mountain who could hurt her. She knew she should run.

  But she wouldn’t. She didn’t want to leave her mother there with the man. She crawled in among the branches of the rhododendron, trying to hide herself.

  “Mama,” she whispered.

  Her mother’s voice came back to her. Not in her ears, but inside her head, like a whisper.

  “I won’t leave you.”

  The man stepped closer to her mother. His chest and neck were torn and ragged like the rotting deer carcasses they sometimes found in the woods. He wasn’t talking. Ivy could tell her mother was talking to him, but she couldn’t hear the words. She wished her father were there. He would make the man go away.

  It was so quiet, she could hear her own breathing. Even the birds had gone away.

  Her mother held out her hands to the man. His ugly smile got bigger.

  Ivy screamed for him to stop, but he didn’t.

  Her mother’s voice in her head again: “Shhhhhh. Be brave.”

  The forest around them darkened, the light slipping away, and Ivy wanted to run to her mother’s arms, or home and hide beneath her bed.

  Now, the only light seemed to be coming from her mother. Ivy could only see the faint shape of her mother’s body; the rest was a brilliant cloud. She looked like an angel. Suddenly, Ivy couldn’t remember her mother’s face. It terrified her more than anything she was seeing.

  The man needed to get away from her mother, but now her mother was even closer to him. She raised her hands to his face and that ugly, ugly smile. Ivy thought his smile was even uglier than her own misshapen lip.

  Then his smile was gone. He looked confused and afraid. Ivy almost felt sorry for him. Almost. As the light from her mother grew, it began to cover him as well.

  The ground beneath Ivy started shaking, and a sound like a million coal trucks barreling toward them filled the air.

  She screamed for her mother, but her mother and the man had disappeared into the light, which was spreading everywhere. It wasn’t daylight, but another kind of light, glittering white and cold. Colder than the water at the lake where her father took them fishing.

  In front of Ivy, the ground began to break open and she was sure they would all be swallowed up. Tree limbs cracked and fell around her, and she clung tightly to the rubbery branches of the rhododendron. The ball of light that held her mother and the man hovered over the crack in the earth. Ivy turned away, hiding her face and squeezing her eyes shut. Behind her, the earth seemed to cry out like an angry animal. I’m not brave! She couldn’t save her mother, or herself.

  Then it was done.

  Ivy opened her eyes. Dawn—a true dawn—had come. High in one of the nearby trees, a squirrel scolded. Such a normal, familiar sound. She wanted to laugh with relief.

  She eased herself out of the rhododendron, with much more difficulty than when she had first hidden inside it.

  Jolene stood some ten yards away, her black hair tangled, her shoulders rounded with exhaustion. She sank to her knees.

  “Anthony?” Ivy ran to where Jolene knelt.

  Anthony lay on the ground, naked to the waist, his hair flecked with dirt, his handsome face peaceful in a way Ivy had never seen before.

  She knelt beside him, and took his left hand in hers.

  Beside her, Jolene was sobbing.

  Anthony’s hand was soft, softer than she could have ever imagined. She ran her fingers over his wrist. The stitches she had sewn so carefully (not so carefully, it turned out; he had been awkward with that hand) had disappeared. So had the wounds to his chest and neck. His skin was smooth. Unmarked.

  Resting his hand gently on the ground, Ivy touched his neck. Here, too, the stitches were gone. He was perfect. She had never seen such a perfect man.

  • • •

  They walked the trail in silence. It was full morning, and clear. This time, Jolene followed a step behind Ivy. As they approached the trailhead, they could see the police cars parked close to the trailer.

  “What if he’s gone when we take them up there?” Ivy said.

  “He’s not going anywhere. He’s dead.”

  Ivy nodded, feeling suddenly shy. She tucked a hand into her pocket to stroke the homely, armless little doll she had found lying in the dirt. It made her feel safe.

  Jolene touched Ivy’s other hand, but didn’t try to hold it. “I’ll be right there with you,” she said.

  Epilogue

  Lila pulled her golf visor lower onto her forehead. She wasn’t yet used to the relentless southern sunshine that poured from the sky from early morning until evening. The nearby sandhills weren’t mountains; the tall pine trees offered little cooling shade. It was nothing like home.

  She glanced up on her backswing. It was a terrible habit and put her off balance every time. She didn’t have the concentration for golf. She hadn’t had it before, but it was worse, now. Lowering the club slowly, she watched as one of the assistant pros--Todd--crossed the cart path, coming toward her. She looked past him to see if Barbara, the soft-voiced, patient assistant she had worked with for weeks, was behind him. There was no one else anywhere near the driving range.

  I can do this.

  The words in her head weren’t any kind of match for the sudden clench of her stomach.

  I will stay here.

  “Mrs. Tucker.”

  Lila forced herself to hold out her gloved hand. She forced herself to smile.

  “Barbara had a family emergency, and asked me to take over your lesson today.”

  Todd was deeply tanned like the starters and everyone else who worked around the golf course. He had an easy, self-deprecating smile. But his teeth were too white in the sunshine. His mouth too big. When he took her hand, she felt her insides go rigid. If he noticed the change in her, he hid it well.

  I can’t do this.

  Fifteen minutes later, sitting in her car with the air conditioning blasting from the vents, she tried to remember what she’d said to Todd to excuse herself. Around her the sunlight spiked off the other cars in the parking lot like so much white hot fire. Her memory was blank. Overwhelmed. She prayed that she could get home without having to call her mother-in-law or the housekeeper to come and get her.

  • • •

  Lila drew herself a lukewarm bath and sank into it. The tub wasn’t as large as the one in the master suite, but neither she nor Bud had been comfortable at the thought of moving into his parents’ old rooms. His mother had decamped to the guest house after Bud’s father died, saying that she wanted something smaller. Her kindness to them after Lila’s ordeal--including inviting them to take the house--had stunned both Lila and Bud. Still, the suite sat empty. Bud had talked about remodeling it, but talking about it was as far as they’d gotten.

  For a month after the assault, Lila had showered in her clothes. Even now, over a year later, she could hardly bear to look at herself naked. Months and months of therapy had yet to make any kind of difference.

  “Lila?”

  Bud tapped lightly on the bathroom door and let himself in.

  “Hey,” she said. “You came back.”

  He smiled. “Of course I came back,” he said. “I always come back.”
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br />   Back from there. Back from Alta. Back from seeing Jolene, who had stuck by Ivy through the investigation and the plea deal. Lila didn’t know why. Maybe it was out of some misguided idea of friendship. She thought there was something seriously wrong with both women. They weren’t like other people, with their secrets and bizarre attachment to the mountain. Bud had told her that Jolene had come from the mountain--whatever in the hell that meant.

  Bud didn’t need to tell her that he’d seen Jolene, and Lila never asked. She believed him when he told her that there was nothing sexual between him and Jolene. She knew her husband well enough.

  “I signed the sale paperwork on the club,” he said. “And I think we’ve got a buyer for the house.”

  “Since you’re back, you should call your mother and see if she wants to come over for dinner,” Lila said. Anything to keep from talking about that place. “Will you grab me a towel?”

  He watched her get out of the tub with a frank, unashamed stare. His eyes weren’t playful, like they used to be. She knew she was the one who had killed his playfulness. But he wasn’t trying to make her pay. At least not on purpose.

  “I thought you should know that Ivy’s out of the mental health center,” he said, handing her the towel.

  “Oh,” Lila said.

  Ivy’s lawyer had successfully argued Stockholm Syndrome, but Lila knew better. Ivy had scammed everyone with her crazy little seamstress act. She had let that animal into her house, and served him like she was his slave. It didn’t matter that he had finally shown up dead on Devil’s Oven. He had no marks on his body. There was no clue that he was anything more than a killer who had found his way into the mountains and murdered Claude, and Thora, as well as the man the police found under the stage. Why? The police had never established a motive or found a trace of him in the system. No one who mattered had bought Bud’s story about Dwight killing Anthony days and days before Claude’s death. They all assumed that Dwight had lied. But Lila believed. She also suspected that Tripp had known, that he was more involved than any of them understood.

  Tripp. The snake in her Eden.

  She had tried to hate him. Really tried. But all she could muster was pity.

  She looked up at Bud. How long was she going to feel pity for herself? She prayed that wasn’t what she was feeling for him.

  No. There has to be more. Bud deserves better. We both do.

  Lila shivered in the damp towel.

  “Ah, Red.” Bud stroked her hair. “Come here.”

  He held her close until the shivering stopped.

  About The Author

  Laura Benedict is the author of the dark suspense novels Isabella Moon, Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, and Devil's Oven. She has also edited the Surreal South: an Anthology of Short Fiction series with her husband, Pinckney Benedict. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, Noir at the Bar, and a number of other anthologies. She lives in the southernmost wilds of a midwestern state, where she is surrounded by coyotes, bobcats, and many other less picturesque predators.

  She is scarier than she looks.

  Website: www.laurabenedict.com

  Notes From the Handbasket Blog

  Connect on Twitter or Facebook

  Email: laura@laurabenedict.com

  In Gratitude and Thanksgiving

  Cindy Gunnin

  CJ Lyons

  D.P. Lyle

  Ellen Clair Lamb

  Jedidiah Ayres

  Jennifer Holbrook Talty

  Joan Huston

  Joe Hartlaub

  Joyclyn

  Karen Dionne

  Kay Russell

  Kermit Moore

  Maggie Caldwell

  Melissa Woods

  Michelle Gibson

  Paige Crutcher

  Sophie Littlefield

  Susan Raihofer

  Pinckney, Cleveland, and Nora

  What They’re Saying About Laura Benedict’s Work

  CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS

  “Don’t let the title fool you; though it sounds like a Cary Grant film, CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS is extremely scary. Benedict has written a very suspenseful, tense and sinister second novel.” —Booklist

  “Laura Benedict paints a vibrant picture of lives haunted by the past—where sins of the spirit meet sins of the flesh and no character is left unscathed.”—Jonathan Santlofer, bestselling author of The Murder Notebook

  “CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS is a lush, intelligent novel that elevates the typical horror novel into a fascinating and often diabolical character study that enthralls even as it terrifies. A beautiful, spine-tingling thriller of revenge, secrets and simmering childhood resentments with otherworldly surprises around every corner, this is one of the best books I’ve read in years.”—Amanda Stevens, author of The Devil’s Footprints

  “Deliciously malevolent—Benedict’s writing is like a beautiful, poisonous flower.” —Alexandra Sokoloff, author of The Harrowing and The Price

  ISABELLA MOON

  “The melancholic appeal of Benedict’s first novel is deeply tied to her spot-on portrayal of small-town America and all its contradictions. An amalgam of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, this mystery/thriller will simultaneously tug at the heartstrings and scare the bejesus out of readers. In a word: unforgettable.”—Chicago Tribune

  “A gripping thriller … [Benedict] unravels the tale masterfully … her pacing is quite good, with surprises that seem to come out of nowhere.”—Grand Rapids Press

  “A volatile mixture of heavy romance, serious homicide, and the paranormal … Kate, with a sizzling and explosive story all her own, holds all the strands together.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Benedict fleshes out her characters quickly, imbuing them with a lived-in history in a few concise pages. When she kills one of them off, early and brutally, it stings. [She has] an ability to make us mourn.”— Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “This debut thriller shines, boasting evocative writing and a well-integrated mix of ethereal supernatural phenomena and gritty violence.”—Romantic Times (4 ½ Stars)

  “An amazing debut … fast-moving … with a surprise ending.”—Daily American

  “Rewarding … Benedict’s debut is a small-town thriller with a hint of the supernatural and compelling, well-drawn characters.”—Library Journal

  “Like digging up an unmarked grave in the gloaming, ISABELLA MOON is a tense and creepy hunt for the truth about what lies beneath. With a missing child, a reluctant medium hiding secrets of her own, and a picture perfect Southern town resting on a foundation of sex, drugs and lies, Laura Benedict’s debut will definitely have readers sleeping with the lights on—if they sleep at all.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Beautiful Lies and Sliver of Truth

  “ISABELLA MOON is a book of secrets and dark miracles. Laura Benedict writes with such tender power and understanding, filling the pages with characters whose mysteries and longings will matter to every reader. She has written an exquisite, closely observed novel that happens to be a great thriller. It captivated me instantly, and haunts me still.”—Luanne Rice, author of The Edge of Winter

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by Laura Benedict

  Dedicated to the memory of Howard and Marie Baugh

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAP
TER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  In Gratitude and Thanksgiving

  What They’re Saying About Laura Benedict’s Work