Blood in the Woods

by J. P. Willie

  And no shit, my good friend was right. In what seemed to be a blink of an eye, the entire school was congratulating me on my new girlfriend, and I was getting everything from high fives to jealous looks from the other girls who were obviously pissed that I hadn’t asked them out.

  Yes sir, that summer was going to be the best one yet.

  Or so I thought.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MOUTH OF THE SOUTH: 1992

  Having a girlfriend changed a lot of things that summer between Jack and I, but surprisingly, it wasn’t all for the worse. It kept the two of us out of a lot of trouble, but of course we still had time to find it when the fancy took us. When we weren’t at the movies, mini golf, or taking trips out to the fun park in Baton Rouge, we dished out our bits of havoc around the neighborhood; lighting mailboxes on fire and shooting animals were our favorites, the latter using the BB gun I’d stolen out of Pepaw’s old gun closet. Before we set off to scout the neighborhood for pets – strays or otherwise – Jack would hop on the handlebars of my bike, stuff the gun under his shirt and give me the big thumbs-up, and no pets on Rhine Road were safe.

  We rolled up into the Oaks one day and spotted a big-ass Golden Retriever digging around in a trash can. Jack jumped off my handlebars, lay down on his belly, took aim and pulled the trigger. He did it so fast – the entire maneuver had to have been less than twenty seconds flat – and poof, that BB was heading for its target. The gun bucked in Jack’s hands and we watched the BB strike the dog square in the balls. The poor bastard went to his knees and dragged his sack across the grass, howling like a banshee. Laughing, Jack and I got back on the bike and took off in absolute hysterics.

  “Did you see that fucker dragging his balls across the yard?” Jack could barely speak and was decidedly red in the face from laughing.

  “Oh my God! My stomach hurts!” I howled.

  “I didn’t mean to get him in the balls,” Jack said, “I think the wind took the shot.”

  “Where were you aiming?” I giggled.

  “His ass!” Jack bellowed, and laughter claimed us again.

  A week later, Jack beat up some kid who lived a few streets over. He was riding his bike down Rhine Road and stopped to chat with us near the entrance to the Oaks. Next thing I knew, a punch was thrown, and the kid soared up into the air and landed on his back in the sewage ditch across the street.

  Apparently the dumb kid had called Jack a motherfucker, or some such – must have been something really insulting, because Jack would never have randomly beaten up on some kid; that just wasn’t him. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Jack was still having problems with what had happened to Scarlet. We still hadn’t talked about it, ever; the subject was forbidden fruit and we both knew it. The change I noticed in my blood brother made me wonder if he saw a difference in me.

  That summer, I was officially labeled the Mouth of the South by kids and adults alike. Shit, even Momma started calling me it!

  I turned into the biggest shit talking soon-to-be-twelve-year-old in Tangipahoa Parish and I was damned proud of it. I would argue with the devil himself, along with anyone who pissed me off or got in my way. I wasn’t a great fighter, not at all, I was a bit of a weenie, truth be told, but my mouth usually ran people off; they thought that if my bark was as big as my bite, I would surely be a force to be reckoned with. My mouth started a lot of shit, but thank God it was able to get me out of a lot too.

  One day, Jack and I were riding down the street and we noticed a condom on the side the road, still in its little foil wrapper, clearly someone didn’t get lucky last night. Of course, we stopped next to it, and Jack clambered off my handlebars, tore the rubber packet open and stretched the contents out.

  “Holy shit,” Jack was shocked, “you think our dicks will ever fit into something this long?”

  “Damn, that thing’s fucking huge!” I gasped.

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you put ’em on?” I genuinely had no idea, I guess I’d been too busy goofing off in Sex Ed’ class.

  “No idea,” Jack admitted. He brought the rubber up to his mouth and blew it up like a balloon – a ribbed balloon, incidentally. “Shit! It’s made a funny smell around my lips, and now they’ve gone all numb.”

  “Well, stop blowing the damned thing up, then.”

  “Good call,” Jack muttered as he licked his lips to see if he could feel them.

  Just then, a car pulled out of the Oaks and made its way towards us. I glanced over at Jack and he had that look on his face – that I’m about to do something I probably shouldn’t do look of his. As the car approached, Jack placed the blown-up contraceptive over his genitals and dry humped the air. The elderly couple in the car stared at us in complete disgust as Jack viciously thrusted his pelvis at them as they drove by. “Suck it, baby! Suck my dick!” he yelled after the car.

  I knew it was horribly wrong, but really I couldn’t help but laugh, after all, the look on the old lady’s face had been priceless.

  After they’d passed us, I picked up my bike, Jack jumped on the handlebars and we made our way down along Rhine Road; Jack with the blown up rubber still in his hands, yelling and screaming a whole host of obscenities to the world in general.

  It took Angela and Krystle a figurative act of congress to talk Jack and I into going to the mall with them one late summer afternoon. They had gotten us to go to the movie theater, but that was attached to the far side of the mall, so to us it was just the theater and hence not the place where we’d almost been murdered in an elevator.

  The girls called my house and asked Momma if we could go with them, since they knew Jack was staying the night at my house. We hadn’t been inside the main mall since the incident, and we didn’t really want to go back, but women have a way of convincing you to do shit you don’t want to do, even at the tender age of eleven.

  So, reluctantly, Jack and I agreed to go, but we made a pact beforehand to stay on our toes and stick to each other like glue. Angela’s dad came and picked us up about an hour later, rolling into our driveway, honking his horn. Jack, Momma and I went out to greet them, and as Momma made small talk and thanked him for taking us to the mall, Jack opened the sliding door to the van.

  Krystle was sitting primly in the third-row seat with Angela, so Jack and I got in and settled in the comfy seats in the center row. After Momma was done bullshitting with Angela’s Dad, we pulled out of the driveway and headed off to the mall. To regular kids like Angela and Krystle, a trip to the mall got them all excited and giggly, but for Jack and I – well, we remained silent the whole trip up there.

  Once we got there, Angela’s dad pulled up to the main entrance and dropped the four of us off. He was taking the van to get an oil change and told us to meet him at the Taco Bell across the way in about an hour and a half.

  Things went smoothly this time around, we walked around with the girls, window shopped and sauntered into a couple of clothing stores that at any other given time Jack and I wouldn’t have stepped foot in. That entire time, though, we kept a wary eye open, scanning every department store before going in, and we never turned our backs to anyone. After about an hour of wandering around looking at stuff none of us could have afforded, the girls were ready to head over to Taco Bell. Jack and I had no objections to that; we were both relieved to have survived our second trip to the mall without incident.

  We crossed the street carefully and when we got into the parking lot, Angela took hold of my hand. I got that funny feeling again in my pants, but quickly got it under control. Jack opened the doors for us – such a gentleman – and we went inside. There were only three people inside; one under the advertisement for the new Taco Salad, eating alone, and a young couple, mid-twenties maybe, sitting by one of the windows that looked out towards the mall.

  “I’ll go grab us a booth,” Krystle said and weaved her way through the tables and chairs.

  “You want something to eat, Jody?” Angela asked.

  “No, I’m goo
d. I didn’t bring any money anyways.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll get something for you. My dad gave me twenty dollars.”

  “Can you get Jack something, too, then?” I asked, I didn’t want to leave my best friend flapping in the wind.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  I walked over to the booth and joined Krystle and Jack, who were having a conversation about school.

  “You think we’ll get a new French teacher next year?” Krystle asked.

  “God, I hope so,” Jack replied, “I can’t stand that twat we had last.”

  “Me either.”

  “Angela is getting us both something, Jack,” I butted in.

  “Cool, what’s she getting?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s free.”

  “And beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Sometimes they can,” Krystle chimed in. “But that makes them a selfish ass-wad. My Uncle Frank is like that. You give him free mashed potatoes, and he’ll ask you where the hell the gravy’s at.”

  “What a dick,” I said.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Krystle grimaced.

  I looked over to Angela, and she was getting our food pushed over to her on one of those cheap turquoise trays by none other than my old friend, the Satanist.

  I was delighted to see him again, since there was something I had to ask him; hell, I knew I’d get a sensible answer from him. I made my way toward the counter in a trance-like state, so damned nervous because although I wanted answers, I was shit-scared of what they might be.

  Angela turned around with the tray in her hand and smiled at me as if I was going to take the load off her hands – I didn’t. I walked right by her and knocked on the counter to get the guy’s attention. I heard Angela let out a frustrated sigh and she stormed off to the booth.

  “Hey, buddy. Goodness you got big! What’s going on?” he asked politely.

  “I need to talk to you,” I was blunt, in no mood for pleasantries.

  “Oookaaay,” the guy behind the counter said, “about what?”

  “Please, could you step outside? I have something very important to ask you.”

  “Look, kid, I’m on the clock still, and I can’t –”

  “Please,” I begged.

  He took a serious look at me, then at the clock on the wall in the lobby and then back down at his own watch.

  “Alright,” he agreed, “you got ten minutes, and this better be good. Go wait out back by the dumpster. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I said no more and walked back over to the booth where Jack was busy stuffing his face with a burrito supreme. I grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him to his feet “We’ll be right back,” I said to the girls, and Jack and I left out the main doors, Jack’s mouth still full of beans, meat, cheese and sour cream.

  “What the fuck, Jody? You trying to make me choke to death?”

  “I don’t want to hear it right now, Jack, just follow me.”

  We walked up to the big blue dumpster that had the letters BFI on the side of it. I waited to hear Jack’s old joke of how the abbreviation meant Black Family Inside, but he remained silent. Cardboard boxes were scattered on the ground around the dumpster, with rotted lettuce and the stench of curdled refried beans polluting the air. The cashier came out the back door, lit a cigarette and walked up to us.

  “So, let me hear what’s so important that I had to take a ten-minute break for two middle schoolers that I haven’t seen in over a year. Hell, I don’t even know your names.”

  I wasted no time and told him about that night at Jack’s house, and once I got to the part about what the people had been wearing, and what they’d done to poor Scarlet, the Satanist cashier was sucking on his cigarette like it was going to run away from him. And before I knew it, he was lighting up another one. As I regaled the cashier, I looked over at Jack, who paced back and forth in front of the dumpster and I could tell that he was crying a little.

  When I was done telling the cashier everything about that night, he stood there and looked upon us with pity.

  “So now that you know everything, I want you to tell me who, or what these people are, if you can,” I finished up like a half-priced courtroom lawyer.

  “Have your parents not talked to you about any of it?”

  “Look, sir, we’re not stupid kids, but our parents seem to think we are. I figure they don’t want to scare us, but by them not telling us shit, it’s just making things worse. We need to know what’s happening. Why were they wearing those robes? Why was the guy who killed Scarlet wearing a skull mask? Are we in danger?”

  “You want to know the truth?” the cashier asked us, his tone straightforward.

  “Yes,” Jack broke his silence, “I want to know who killed my dog.”

  “Look,” the guy said, placing one hand on each of our shoulders. “Those people are part of a cult, a group claiming to be Devil Worshippers. But they’re not your typical breed, this bunch of lunatics have been running between Hammond, Albany and Ponchatoula for the past couple of years, stirring up the shit pot. Do you guys watch the news?”

  “No,” we said, I mean, what eleven year old watches the damned news?

  “A lot of talk show hosts have been doing specials on this kind of stuff recently. Everything from murderous cults to the occult seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days. Have you guys heard of Hurtado Mendoza?”

  “Isn’t he a big news guy from New Orleans? I’ve heard my mom mention him a few times,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s right. He came to Hammond about three months ago to do a special on the occult, and on his first night in town, his equipment van was trashed and someone had left a wooden box on the hood. When Mendoza opened it, there was a note inside telling him to back the fuck off – along with a cow’s heart. Boy, let me tell you, his ass was out of here the next morning.”

  “That’s crazy,” I was disgusted by the story, the memory of the butchered calves flashing through my mind.

  “I know what a cult is,” Jack chipped in. “It’s a bunch of wackos that get together and do sex stuff and stupid shit – my dad told me all about the Manson Murders. But what’s an occult?” Jack asked.

  “Let me break it down for you so it’s easier to understand,” the cashier said, taking another deep drag on his cigarette. “The occult is a secret religion people have been studying since the beginning of time. It was first mentioned in the Bible and people that were suspected of practicing it, your necromancers, fortunetellers, psychics and the like, were stoned to death in public because it was all considered the way of the Devil, according to the Good Book.

  “Nowadays, it’s still looked down upon by normal society, but Satanists like me study it anyway – we believe that it holds the truth to everything that people are too scared to see. The occult has a bad rap because of people like those who killed your dog.”

  “If the Bible says it’s wrong, then why take a chance studying it?” I was getting completely overwhelmed with all this information.

  “I have my reasons, kid, but I’m not about to discuss my beliefs with two eleven-year-old boys.”

  “We’re about to be twelve,” Jack stated proudly.

  The cashier paid him no attention and went on, “The problem you two boys are facing is one that we’ve always had here in Hammond – Devil Worshippers. Over the years, beliefs like the occult, Satanism, and Devil worship have attracted some of the most out-of-control youths and adults across America. Things have gotten completely out of hand, so out of hand that it’s caught the attention of the media and the police. I’m not going to lie to you boys, there is a problem in this small town of ours, and like I told you before, stay safe, stick together and don’t talk to any strangers.”

  “Do these so-called Devil Worshippers kill kids?” I asked. I really hadn’t paid attention to the history lesson he’d just relayed, I just wanted to know if we were in any real danger.

  “There have been repo
rts, yes, but that’s not what true Devil Worshippers are about, but I think the group running around these parts are capable of it though. A kid was offered as a sacrifice in the small town of Cumberland, Iowa the other day; I saw it on the news.” He sucked harder on his cigarette. “He’d been hog-tied and stabbed to death in an old run-down mill out in the middle of nowhere. The cops found his body and found enough evidence to point them to a group of so-called Devil Worshippers active in the area – they were arrested and are now awaiting trial.

  “People do some unspeakable things in this world, boys, you’ll see that when you get older, but I want you to know something else...” he looked at Jack and I with fear in his eyes. “There was a boy who was kidnapped from that very mall just yesterday; did you guys hear about that?”

  “No, sir,” Jack’s voice was shaky.

  “You boys should read the paper and watch the news more often, instead of those dumb cartoons. Things are getting pretty bad around here. He was taken from the arcade up on the second floor in the mall. The police are still looking for him.”

  “My God,” I gasped. “Do you think the people we saw are the ones that took him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, can’t say for sure who it was, but I do have my suspicions.”

  “What do you think we should do?” I asked him.

  “The best advice I can give you is to avoid any trouble with these people. Seems to me like they’re using your street as one of their stomping grounds.”

  “But we don’t know who they are; the police have no clues either,” Jack threw in.

  “Just lay low until these people are caught, boys. For shit’s sake, they were in your yard, and they know where you live – I don’t mean to scare you, but you did want the truth. Stick together and you’ll be fine – and call the police if you think you’re ever in danger, it’s much better to be safe than sorry. I gotta go now,” he squinted down at his watch. “Your parents aren’t gonna come up here later on and chew my ass for telling you all this stuff, are they?”

  “No, sir, we won’t say a word to anyone,” I promised.