by Ronald Kelly
Slash Jackson turned to leave, aiming to put as much distance between him and the state trooper as possible. In his haste to get away, he ran into a clump of blackberry bramble. The thorns snagged his clothing, refusing to let go. As quietly as he could, Slash struggled until he finally pulled free of the barbs.
He glanced back toward the interstate. A husky trooper dressed in a tan and brown uniform, mirrored sunglasses, and a Smoky Bear hat was walking toward the driver’s side of the Lincoln.
Slash didn’t stick around to witness the patrolman’s discovery. He escaped into the Tennessee forest, mingling with the summer greenery, as well as the deep shadows that lay in-between.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was a glorious ride for them all. Especially for one in particular.
“Faster!” urged Chuck as they headed along the southernmost stretch of Sycamore Road. They passed the Hadley place, the last farm before the rural road gave way to deepening thicket and tall stands of oak and birch.
“Sorry, pal,” said Rusty. “I promised your mom that we’d take it easy.”
“Aw, she won’t know,” he said. “I’m tired of dragging around at a snail’s pace. Let’s turn on the afterburners!” He grabbed the handle in the inner hull of the trashcan sidecar and began to crank it furiously.
Rusty felt the bike gain speed, despite his wishes. Soon, the pedals of Cyclone were whirling so swiftly that it was hard for his legs to keep up. “Slow down, Chuck! Dadblame it, what if we miss the next turn and end up tumbling head over ass into a ditch?”
Chuck merely grinned. “It’s been a helluva long time since I’ve had a scraped elbow or bruised knee, Rusty. To tell the truth, I’d kinda welcome it.”
“Speak for yourself! Now slow down a bit and I promise we’ll pick up the pace. Okay?”
The overweight boy laughed and cut down his cranking to half its urgency. “Oh, all right, you lily-livered coward!” said Chuck.
“What time is it?” asked Rusty after they had made a rather precarious bend in the road and, fortunately, survived.
Keith checked his diver’s watch. “It’s half past five.”
“Then we’d better get back,” said the lanky farm boy. “I promised that I’d get Chuck back by six.”
“I know what you promised,” said Chuck. “But you can’t take me back now. Shoot, we haven’t even made it into the woods yet. And you know how much I always liked the woods.”
Rusty recalled how he, Chuck, and Maggie used to explore the green expanse of the forest south of Harmony, back before their friend’s tragic accident. “But what about your folks? They’ll have our hides for sure!”
“Aw, Mom won’t mind if we stay out a little later,” Chuck said, aware of the white lie he was concocting. “And, as for my dad, he wouldn’t much care if I sailed off to China in a leaky rowboat.”
“Oh, Chuck!” said Maggie. “You know that’s not true.”
Chuck Adkins thought of the way his father couldn’t even look him square in the eyes. He said nothing in reply, but didn’t seem very convinced of the girl’s assurance.
“I don’t know,” said the normally reckless Rusty.
“Come on, buddy,” moaned Chuck. The boy donned his best hang-dog look, trying to appear as forlorn as he possibly could.
Rusty frowned. “Oh, all right! I can’t take your blasted pouting. You look sadder than a basset hound with a bad case of hemorrhoids.”
The others laughed as they continued onward along Sycamore Road, past the last boundaries of small town civilization and into the five mile stretch of tall trees and dense underbrush known simply as the South Woods.
~ * ~
It wasn’t long before the sunbaked blacktop eventually gave way to rutted clay earth. The sun was setting to the west, throwing long shadows across their path. Abruptly, the sunny cheerfulness of the summer day was gone. In its place, lurked something less comforting; less familiar to them.
“Hey!” called Keith. “Where’d the road go?”
Rusty and Maggie slowed their bikes and braked to a half just short of the gloom that choked the woods just beyond. Keith rode onward a few yards, then stopped, suddenly aware that his friends were no longer with him. He looked back at them, puzzled at the expressions of hesitation on their faces.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Rusty looked at Maggie and Chuck, then back at his cousin. “Uh, we’d best not go in there.”
“Where?” Keith wanted to know.
“There,” explained Maggie pointing ahead of the boy from Atlanta.
Keith turned and looked southward. The dirt trail – which became narrower and choked with weeds – began to gently slope downward. From what he could tell, the road grew steeper, plunging into a dark, wooded hollow that seemed to be more the size of a small valley than anything else.
“Huh?” Keith shook his head, confused at the strange way they were acting. “I don’t understand.”
“Nobody goes down there, Keith,” Chuck told him. “Nobody.”
“Why not?”
Rusty and Maggie shifted uncomfortably on their bikes, while Chuck hunkered a little lower in the hand-built sidecar. “’Cause it’s Hell Hollow, that’s why,” said Rusty.
“Hell Hollow?” laughed Keith. “Why is it called that?”
“Just look at it,” said Maggie.
Keith turned and appraised the hollow again. This time it seemed different than before. The trees seemed closer together and the lush carpeting of broad-leafed kudzu and blossoming honeysuckle appeared much thicker. Also the darkening shadows of evening seemed denser, almost sinister in a way. In fact, there were places deep in the backwoods hollow where he could see nothing at all. Only inky pits of darkness.
“It’s just an old hollow, that’s all,” scoffed Keith. “It’s nothing to get spooked about.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” said Chuck. “You’re not from around here. We are. We’ve heard the stories all our lives.”
“What stories?” asked Keith, intrigued.
Rusty cleared his throat nervously. “Uh, you’re gonna think we’re crazy, cuz, but there’s something you oughta know.”
“What?”
A heavy silence hung between them for a long moment. Then Rusty continued. “Well, this place, Hell Hollow,” he said. “It’s haunted.”
Keith snorted loudly through his nose. “Yeah! Right!”
The other three simply stared at him, their faces solemn.
“Aw, come off it, will you?” said Keith. “I know I’m a little green out here in Hootersville, but I’m not stupid enough to swallow this kind of bull. Next you’ll be taking me snipe-hunting.”
“We’re not pulling your leg, cuz,” said Rusty.
“Wish we were,” Maggie added.
Keith began to feel a little angry. “Well, I’m not buying it. Is that why you came out here in the first place? So you could try to scare the crap out of the poor city boy?”
“No,” said Chick. “Honestly, we didn’t.”
Keith looked from one face to the next. No matter how hard he tried, he could detect no deception in their eyes. They were sincere about what they were telling him. They genuinely believed that the vast hollow in the center of South Woods was haunted.
The boy laughed, but the sound was oddly humorless. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, we’re not,” said Maggie.
“Serious as a banker on foreclosure day,” Rusty replied.
Keith turned and looked back into the hollow. For some strange reason, it seemed darker and deeper, as though the shadows were expanding and creeping out of the vegetation toward them.
“I thought you said you guys have been all over these woods.”
“We have,” said Rusty. “All except this hollow here.”
“You mean you’ve never been down there?” he asked.
“Hell no!” said Chuck.
Keith shook his head in disbelief. “I thought you country folks we
re fearless. And here you are, shivering and shaking at a bunch of trees and ivy.” He looked back into the hollow. The shadows were even darker than before. He had to admit, it certainly looked spooky.
“Let’s head on back,” said Chuck, who, a moment ago, had thumbed his nose at the prospect of returning home.
Maggie and Rusty began to steer their bikes around, back toward the blacktop of the rural road.
“Hey, hold up for a sec,” Keith called out. “Why do you think this place is haunted?”
“’Cause it just is, that’s why,” said Rusty. “Everyone in Harmony knows that. And they know to stay clear of it, too. Especially after dark.”
“Why is it haunted?” asked Keith, unable to leave it alone.
“Nobody really knows,” said Maggie. Even from where he was, Keith could see the goose bumps on her tanned arms. “It’s just a common fact.”
“What are you saying? That people have seen ghosts down there?”
Rusty shrugged his freckled shoulders. “Well, not exactly. It’s more like sounds folks have heard down there.”
“What kind of sounds?” In spite of himself, Keith felt the fine hairs on the nape of his neck began to stand.
“Strange sounds. Godawful laughing. Like somebody who’d gone mad.”
“Evil laughter,” said Maggie softly.
Keith turned back toward the dark hollow, feeling a delicious thrill of pure terror run down his spine. His friends were right. There was something wrong with the place. It wasn’t something you could actually see, however. Rather, it was something you felt… deep down in the marrow of your bones.
Still, he couldn’t help but be intrigued. “I think we oughta go down there and check it out.”
Rusty’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy? I wouldn’t set one foot in that place.”
“Chicken, eh?” taunted the boy, hoping to shame his cousin into complying.
He had no such luck, however. Rusty’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “Well, yeah. If you want to know the truth of it… I reckon I am.”
Rusty’s admission of fear brought no satisfaction to Keith. Instead, it merely reinforced his own uneasiness. “Just how long has this place had this rep?”
Chuck shrugged. “Ever since anyone in town could remember. We don’t know how it got started. We just know it’s true.”
Keith snickered. “I can’t believe you guys! Scared of some place for no good reason.”
The three said nothing. No shame shown on their faces; only a grim certainty of things they had been taught since birth.
“Well, maybe we could come back and explore it tomorrow,” suggest Keith. “In broad daylight.”
“No way!” declared Chuck Adkins. “I wouldn’t go down there with a whole platoon of Marines.”
“Come on,” said Rusty, turning his bike around. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m with you,” said Maggie.
Reluctantly, Keith did likewise. As he pointed his blue Schwinn northward, he turned and studied Hell Hollow one more time. With the gradual setting of the sun, the hollow had lost all color and contrast. It was a pit of solid blackness now.
A moment later, a breeze blew up from out of the hollow. A breeze uncommonly cool for such a hot and humid summer evening. A breeze that carried with it a strange and sinister odor.
An odor like medicine gone wrongfully bad.
He turned to find the others already, starting back up Sycamore Road. Suddenly, being there alone was the last thing Keith wanted.
“Hey!” he called out, his voice higher than he would have liked. “Wait for me, guys!”
Then he headed back up the road as fast his feet could pedal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was after dusk – as well as the deadline of six o’clock – when they arrived back at the Adkins residence.
They glided into the driveway to find Chuck’s mother standing on the front porch, arms crossed and a highly peeved look on her face. Rusty knew at once they had screwed up. “I thought you said it’d be okay with your mom if we stayed out a little later.”
Chuck looked up at his mother’s tense silhouette in the pale porch light and felt his stomach sink. “I reckon I underestimated her,” he replied.
“Come here,” demanded Flora Adkins. “All of you.”
The four looked at one another, suddenly aware of the trouble they were in. Slowly, they hopped off their bikes, helped Chuck back into his wheelchair, and, together, went to the porch to receive their punishment.
The woman glared at them, her eyes hard. “What time is it?” she asked.
Rusty swallowed dryly and glanced over at Keith. His cousin studied the face of his watch. “Uh, a quarter past seven,” he said.
“And what time did I ask you to bring Chuck home?”
“Six o’clock, ma’am,” said Rusty politely.
“It seems like someone got their signals crossed,” said Mrs. Adkins. “Or else, no one really cared.”
“It was my fault, Mom,” admitted Chuck. “I told them you wouldn’t mind. Guess I was wrong.”
“You’re right about that,” she said. The anger in her face slipped a little, revealing the hurt and fear underneath. “I was worried sick about you, Chuck. And not just because you were out riding around only God knows where. Have you forgotten about your medicine? The doctor specifically said that it had to be taken at six every night. And it’s already more than an hour overdue.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” stammered the boy. “I guess we were just having so much fun, that I kind of hated coming back home.” He looked down glumly at the wheelchair he sat in. “Especially this blasted chair here.”
“Go to your room, Chuck,” she told him firmly. “I’ll bring your supper and your medicine. Then you’re to go straight to bed.”
“But, Mom – “ he began, then thought better of it. He hadn’t been punished so severely since he was six or seven years old, but he figured that he probably deserved it now. Although he certainly hadn’t intended to, he had frightened his mother with his reluctance to return home on time.
“You heard me,” she said.
Chuck nodded sadly. “Help me up on the porch, will you, Maggie?”
“Sure,” said the girl. She took the black rubber handles of the wheelchair and steered him up the ramp onto the porch. She stood and watched as Chuck wheeled his way past his mother and through the front door of the house. Then Maggie jumped off the porch and rejoined her friends.
“We really are sorry, Mrs. Adkins,” said Rusty. “We didn’t mean to worry you none.”
Flora’s face failed to soften. “I’d suggest you three get on home. I’ve already called your folks. I’m sure they’ll be wanting to talk to you.”
A sensation of collective dread filled them. “Yes, ma’am,” said Maggie. “Come on guys. Let’s go.”
Flora Adkins watched as Rusty, Keith, and Maggie climbed onto their bikes and headed back down Sycamore Road. Part of her felt ashamed for making the calls that would cause them so much trouble. But, for the most part, she felt satisfied by her actions. No matter whose fault it might have been, the four had scared her very badly. She had enough to worry about without having to agonize over whether or not her crippled son was laying in a drainage ditch somewhere, the victim of a bad bicycle accident.
After the clattering sound of baseball cards in bicycle spokes faded into the summer darkness, she took a deep breath and went inside. Chuck had obeyed her order and gone directly to his room. But he wasn’t the one she was the most upset with. Not by a long shot.
She walked through the foyer and entered the living room. Her husband sat in his easy chair, his eyes glued to the television screen. Joe Adkins was obviously aware of his wife’s presence, but chose to ignore it. He took a long sip from a can of Budweiser and, lazily pointing the remote control, began flipping from one channel to the next.
“Joe,” she said, trying her best to contain her anger. “I could’ve used a little help out there.
”
The mechanic belched, then took another swallow of beer. “I reckon you did good enough for the both of us.”
“It shouldn’t have been my place,” said Flora. “You’re Chuck’s father. You should’ve been the one waiting for him on that porch.”
Joe shifted his gaze from the television and stared at his wife. “Don’t you think you overreacted just a little? The boy and his pals were just late getting home, that’s all. It wasn’t like they were out committing armed robbery or something like that.”
Flora’s thin lips grew thinner. “The boy,” she said. “You mean Chuck.”
A twinge of pain seemed to surface on the man’s strong face, then gave way to bland apathy just as quickly. He turned back to the TV and continued his channel-surfing.
“I’m getting sick of this,” said the woman.
“Sick of what?” asked Joe absently.
“This stupid attitude of yours,” she said in frustration. “This self-pitying guilt trip you’ve been on for the past two years. I’m tired of it, Joe.”
He simply shrugged and took another sip of beer.
“For goodness sakes! You can’t even bring yourself to call your son by name,” she snapped. “It’s the boy this or the boy that. His name is Charles Emery Adkins. Named after your father and mine, remember?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Joe assured her. “I’m the same man I always was. It’s you who got to be such a worry wart. If he so much as farts, you’re there with a thermometer and a bowl of chicken soup. Leave the boy alone, Flora, or you’re going to end up mothering him to death.”
“At least I care about him,” she said. “You don’t seem to give a damn.”
“That isn’t so,” said Joe with no sign of conviction in his voice.
“I’m beginning to wonder,” she said, feeling her contempt bleed away into despair. “Joe, sweetheart, ever since that blasted accident, you’ve been punishing yourself. Feeling guilty about something you had absolutely no control over.”
