Blood in the Woods

by J. P. Willie

  “Eat this!” I heard Jack’s victory yell.

  A long, thick stick smashed into Mitch’s chest, knocking him off me and to one side, but he stopped himself from crashing to the ground. Jack had caught the guy off guard, but that hadn’t been enough to knock him out. Jack quickly realized that his plan hadn’t gone his way, so he rained a flurry of blows to the side of Mitch’s head.

  In the blink of an eye, Mitch grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him into a head butt. There was a sickening, dull clunk and Jack fell down beside me, dazed and confused. Mitch found his balance and raised the saw up over his head.

  “Be pleased, my Lord, as I give you the blood of the innocent. Bless upon me the power of Darkness!” he raved like a madman.

  I felt Jack place a shaking hand on my chest. I turned to look at him; his nose was busted, most likely broken, and he was crying. I knew then that my friend was reaching out to me for his final minutes of comfort; Jack knew we were about to die. Everything else faded out for me, and I felt like I was underwater – and, mercifully I couldn’t hear the crazed incantations that Mitch was spouting; I felt at peace.

  I reached for Jack’s hand and squeezed it tightly as I closed my eyes. The circular saw buzzed above us, and all I could do now was pray; pray for Mitch to bring the saw into my chest and end my life as quickly and painlessly as possible.

  I embraced the end.

  “Hail Satan!” Mitch cried out as he brought down that dreadful blade.

  “No!!” Justin screamed at the top of his voice. My eyes flew open and I saw the kid running full pelt behind Mitch, swinging an axe with all of his might.

  With a sodden thwack, the axe hit home, square in the crazed mailman’s armpit.

  Blood spurted from the wound, spraying high and raining down on our faces. Justin yanked the axe out from Mitch’s body, there was a gross crackling sound and a fresh gush of warm blood covered me, filling my mouth with the taste of melted pennies. Yowling in agony, Mitch dropped the saw, and I could only look on in horror as it tumbled towards my face. Last second instinct had me rolling on top of Jack, and I heard the saw hitting the dirt an inch or so behind my head.

  Mitch collapsed to his side and then onto his belly, crying out with the excruciating pain that wracked his huge frame, his voice deep and resonant in the darkness. Slowly, he inched his way across the grass, pulling himself towards the entrance to the woods with his uninjured arm, his other dragging limply alongside him.

  Justin brought the bloodied axe up once more and swung it down into Mitch’s ankle, peeling the flesh right off the bone, and damned near severing Mitch’s foot. I grimaced at the sound it made, something akin to a thick, cypress branch snapping, and when I looked up at the axe, there were raw shreds of Mitch’s skin hanging from its weathered blade.

  I rolled off of Jack and struggled to my feet, my testicles still pounding a dull ache all the way up to my stomach. I limped over to the chicken coop, bent down and picked up another decent-sized 2x4, just as Justin dropped the axe and threw up over by one of the tree stumps.

  I returned to Mitch and watched him blubber like a scared little kid as he tried to crawl into the woods. I felt nothing but pure hatred for the sick bastard. So, I whacked him across the back with the 2x4, preventing him from hauling his bloodied body one more inch.

  He rolled over, onto his back. “Stop, goddamn it!” Mitch begged, and in that instant he looked like nothing more than our mailman. “Please stop!”

  It’s odd how the tables can turn so quickly, how the hunter can become the hunted, the predator the prey, and this monster of a man who was mere seconds away from taking my life, was begging for his. “I’ll give you anything you want, just let me be.” Mitch bleated, snot bubbling from his blood-splashed nose.

  “Anything?” I asked, my throat painfully dry.

  “Anything, just walk away and leave me be!” he blubbered.

  Suddenly, heartache, pain, anger and a sense of injustice flowed through my heart, and I acted upon all of it.

  “I want my Pepaw back!” I yelled at the devil-man. I cracked the 2x4 across his throat, crushing his trachea in an instant. He at once made wet, gurgling choking noises, and a fat rivulet of blood flowed from his mouth. “I want my Mom and Dad back together!” I screamed and struck him again, this time in his belly. “And I want you to bring Chase back!” at that I brought the wood down hard on Mitch’s forehead, peeling the skin down to the cracked bone.

  I stared awhile at the steady flow of blood that ran from our assailant’s head, watching as it poured into his half-closed eyes and on down his sallow face. I walked away, out of breath, but not quite satisfied. I looked back at Jack, who stared over at Mitch. My best friend’s face was unreadable to me at that moment, and I only realized what malevolence lurked behind the darkness in his eyes when he reached down to pick up the circular saw.

  “What are you doing?” Justin asked him, nervously, as he wiped the dribbles of vomit from his lips with the back of one hand.

  “Giving this son-of-a-bitch what he deserves.”

  I looked over at Mitch, who was barely recognizable, a deserving victim of his own evil. His breathing was shallow and labored, frothy bubbles of blood forming at the corners of his mouth, popping as they jostled against one another. I glanced over at Jack.

  “Just leave him be. We need to get out of here and call the cops. Let them haul this child-killing piece of shit off to jail – if he’s still alive when they get here.”

  Jack didn’t respond, just walked straight on by me, and towards Mitch.

  “Jack!”

  My friend – my blood brother – spun around and looked at me, snapping out of his trance.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told him.

  Jack was crying, the moon illuminating the tear trails on his face like they were a line of diamonds. Saying nothing, Jack turned away from me and walked slowly towards Mitch.

  I made my way back by the house. I turned only when I heard the saw roar to life, and saw that Justin was on his knees, weeping uncontrollably, his body shuddering with great, wracking sobs. Then, a colossal weight crashed into me from behind. I fell to the ground, winded yet screaming with everything I had left in me.

  Scott fell on top of me, holding one hand over the ragged gash in his neck, the other on my throat. In the moonlight, he looked like some terrible, bloodless Vampire; he was sickeningly pale, the veins in his face standing blue and proud through his translucent skin. He’d clearly lost a lot of blood due to the stab wound, and even in my panicked state, I couldn’t help but wonder how the guy was still moving. Wriggling beneath his huge, stinking weight, I managed to shove a finger into the ugly fucker’s eye socket, wincing as it squished into the soft orb and Scott yelped out loud in agony. I shoved my finger further into the socket, and felt his eyeball shift.

  “Get off him, you piece of shit!” Justin cried, bringing the axe back into action.

  The blade struck the middle of Scott’s back, the impact so solid, I felt it through Scott’s body. The man opened his mouth to scream, but no sounds came – only clots of thick, dark blood.

  Taking advantage of his weakened state, I easily pushed the hare lip man off me. He fell over to his back in the cool grass, moaning and twitching in torment, a fresh surge of blood draining out through the wound in his neck. I crawled across to him and clambered atop his frail body. “Why couldn’t you just die!?” I screamed loud and harsh in his face.

  Scott muttered, his lips barely moving, and I thought he was saying help; he reached a hand up towards me, as if begging for mercy. Unmoved, I slapped it away.

  The sound of the saw got louder, and when I looked up, I saw Jack standing over us. Jack lowered the saw, stopping inches away from Scott’s face, and I saw that the once terrifying hare lip guy was pissing his pants as he struggled to form his final words.

  “I can’t do it.” Jack said quietly. He was breathing heavily, and looked particularly gruesome with dark splashes of blo
od covering his face and white shirt.

  Without thinking, I reached up and placed my hands on top of Jack’s. Together, we brought that saw down – slowly.

  Justin came over, sliding on his knees until he was next to me, and placed his hands on the saw as well; he had a crazy, maniacal look in his eyes. The three of us pressed the buzzing blade into Scott’s skull, blood drenching our hands and showering our bodies as it spurted and arced. With his remaining vestiges of strength, Scott let out a high, piercing scream of abject agony as the saw’s blade ate its way into his ugly, twisted face.

  “This is for Chase!” Justin screamed at the dying man, his voice charged with raw emotion.

  Scott’s body shook violently, his arms thrashing wildly as the saw carved through the bones of his skull, sending pinkish-gray putty spraying through the cold night air.

  “Ahhh!” I yelled out at the top of my lungs. Blood and brains filled my open mouth, and I just spat it out as the pungent stink of burnt flesh filled my nose.

  “Die!” Jack cried at the man, who was pretty much on the verge of doing just that. He released the trigger on the tool and we eased it out of Scott’s face, wiggling it a tad as the man’s chewed up face bones clung to the bloody blade.

  Jack let the saw drop to the ground. I climbed off Scott and collapsed to the ground next to Justin.

  Scott was dead.

  We had killed the man – murdered him.

  We hadn’t been forced to end his life, but we had decided to anyway. Whatever innocence we’d had left in us was now gone forever. I could feel it in my darkened soul.

  The night fell quiet again, and I listened to the sound of running water, which contrasted with Mitch’s weak, crackling coughs; the creek was directly behind us, the place that had led us all to the events that had taken place that night. I began to cry as I looked up at the twinkling stars, and Jack made his way over, and we all embraced one another, happy the nightmare was over and thrilled to be alive.

  ***

  As we walked back down the long driveway that had led us to the house of horrors, battered, bruised, bleeding and drenched in blood, I saw blue and red flashing police lights over by the corner where we had ditched our bikes.

  “We have to tell them we killed Scott in self-defense,” Justin said.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Because we could spend the rest our lives behind bars if they find out the truth.”

  “What’s the truth?” Jack’s voice was whisper-weak.

  “That we murdered him in cold blood.”

  We all fell silent. We knew that what Justin was saying was true; we could have easily left Scott to bleed to death from his wounds, but in the heat of the moment we’d decided to play God and take his life.

  “Deal,” I said, “Story is, he came out, took me down, you hit him with the axe, he was still choking me, and that’s when we all took the saw to him. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Jack agreed.

  “Justin?” I asked again.

  “Yeah,” Justin said, wiping tears from his face. “Just remember that we’re going to have to take this to our graves, guys”

  We said nothing more and made our way toward the flashing lights. What Justin said was true; we’d have to live with what we’d done for the rest of our lives.

  All our parents were standing at the bend with over a dozen cops. Mr. Shawn noticed us first and ran toward us, followed by the others, and we were hugged tightly, even though we were covered in blood, and Momma and Mrs. Renee were crying hysterically.

  “Oh my God, Bubba, what happened to you?” Momma shook my shoulders, and stared at my blood-spattered face in horror.

  I noticed two people standing back from the crowd, holding hands, their faces sick with worry; Chase’s Mom and Dad.

  One of the cops walked up to me. “Son, my name’s Officer Rogers, can you tell me what happened to y’all? Why are ya’ll covered in blood?”

  “They killed him,” my voice was unintentionally loud, and caught the attention of the gathered people. “They killed Chase,” I started to cry again. “Then they tried to kill us, but they didn’t – we made it.”

  Chase’s Mom let out a chilling, heart-wrenching wail and collapsed to her knees. Her husband tried to catch her before she hit the ground, but he was too slow. As the poor lady’s knees collided with Rhine Road, my heart broke for her, and I felt her suffering. Unable to keep myself composed any longer, I broke down into a complete and utter mess and wrapped my bloody arms around Momma. I couldn’t think, or speak; all I could do was cry.

  “How did you boys manage to get away?” the lead investigator asked Jack.

  “We fought back,” Jack told him from the safe place of his father’s strong arms, “And we killed him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BLOOD IN THE WOODS: 1993

  We didn’t move to Baton Rouge as originally planned, due to the ongoing investigation, the upcoming trial and medical treatment I had to receive for my testicular injury; after the crazy mailman’s assault on my groin, my left testicle was severely swollen, and I was taken to the doctor for fear of losing it. Turned out, the ultrasound discovered a blood clot on my testicle, and I was immediately placed on a whole host of medication. There were days where I couldn’t walk or get out of bed in the morning, but eventually the swelling did go down and the clot dissolved.

  By this time, though, our incident had hit the local news and papers. Somehow, it failed to make national headlines, but it hit home to every parent in Hammond, New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

  They ran the story on the news as

  BLOOD IN THE WOODS

  And in the local newspaper, The Daily Star, as:

  “SATANIC CULT BROUGHT DOWN BY 3 YOUTHS AFTER ESCAPING GRISLY MURDER HOUSE”

  They used the word Satanic in most of the headlines to attract more attention to the new moral panic – ‘The Satanic Panic’ – which was sweeping the nation. The tabloid press made out like Jack, Justin and I were heroes, and of course, people wanted answers about what had really happened that night, as well as the names of the kids involved.

  Thank God, the police were very supportive and protective of us; we were safeguarded from the media and newspapers, but those who lived on Rhine Road had a good idea that it was us who’d been involved in the whole damn mess; and small town gossip travels faster than the dead.

  It transpired that Rebecca had been arrested at Mitch’s house a day later. Mitch – the mailman no one ever suspected of wrong doing – died in the hospital from his wounds three days after that, and I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him when I heard, in fact I was actually angry that I hadn’t gotten to watch him die like his murderous, hare-lipped friend.

  Countless evidence had been recovered from the old, disintegrating house linking Rebecca to other missing children, which she conveniently blamed on the recently-deceased Mitch, at the same time throwing some guy named Daren under the bus. Meanwhile, Jack, Justin and I had to go through the mandatory counseling – provided by the state, of course – and I got some plump woman named Mrs. Wilson, who was actually pretty cool. I opened up to her a lot, and she really helped me get over the mess in my head over those next few months, reiterating that we did what we had to do to survive.

  But, deep down in my soul, I knew the truth, and I felt foul. I even felt as if I couldn’t pray to God anymore, because I figured he’d not be too happy with what I’d done – I was lost and confused, and sometimes felt like I had no soul at all.

  By the end of the summer, thanks to swift southern justice, the case was closed, the trial over and we were informed that there’d be no future statements required from the three of us; Southerners love their quick justice, much like Texans love the death penalty.

  After receiving the news, I smiled for the first time since summer began. The state didn’t want to put us up on the stand in court, and the killing of Scott was ruled to have been in self-defense. I was glad that Jack and Justin’s statements
didn’t contradict mine, we had all told the exact same story – I guess if we hadn’t, we’d all be in prison or juvenile hall.

  We were just kids, and we’d been through enough, and the state of Louisiana understood that. The counseling was obligatory and extended until we hit fifteen years of age, just to make sure that the three of us remained in good mental health and didn’t go off on a killing spree of our own. That was fine by me because I really did want to recover from the incident and I knew that just talking to Momma about it wasn’t going to solve any of my problems.

  The evidence collected and statements made by Rebecca and Daren were all that was needed to slam their sick, child-killing asses behind bars for life. Those whose children had been murdered at the hands of the satanic group had filled the streets in downtown Hammond on the day those two were sentenced, and the last thing I heard was that the police in Hammond, Ponchatoula and Albany had discovered the remains of over ten children, with the full cooperation of their newly booked prisoners. It was heartbreaking, but at least those poor parents could put their babies to rest and gain some closure.

  After that, Momma forbade me from following the case, and I was only too happy to comply.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SAYING GOODBYE: 1993

  The movers had finished packing everything up on a Sunday morning, and Memaw wanted to roll out by noon to our new home. Momma told me to go run out to the street to check the mail one last time, to make sure the box was empty before we left. I ran out to the road and saw Angela’s van coming my way. I stepped off the road to let them pass, but to my surprise, Angela’s dad stopped the van next to me. The side door slid open, and Angela got out.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” I replied. “Sorry I haven’t called or anything, I kinda had some serious things going on.”