The Witness: A Slasher Horror Novel

by Zach Bohannon

  “Blake?”

  I pushed against his shoulder and only slightly shook him. His head bobbled back and forth, but he didn’t move. He was still looking toward the roof of the barn with a slight smile on his face.

  But he was gone.

  28

  The barn was completely out of sight now. I found myself running through a different collection of trees which began just on the other side of the old barn. Through the branches far above my head, it appeared as if the moonlight was slowly starting to rest, giving me at least some idea that morning could soon be approaching. But with no clear shot of the sky, I just couldn’t be sure.

  While I was moving away from the barn and the town as fast as I could, the fifteen pound sledgehammer in my right hand slowed me down some. I heard shuffling in the trees around me, but assumed it was just that of the Mississippi wildlife, and didn’t allow myself to stop and look. If it was a person after me, or a group of people, I’d just have to handle that situation as it came to me.

  I’d been running through these woods for what seemed like hours, though I thought it had probably only been minutes. Just when I thought the trees would never end, I saw an exit in the distance.

  I moved faster so that I could reach the tree line, hoping that I would end up back in civilization.

  But as I reached the last row of trees, I realized that I’d arrived at anything but that.

  ***

  I rested my free hand on the tree to my immediate left. It was a large pine, and its old age showed through the trunk’s texture.

  It was an ominous scene in front of me.

  Daylight hadn’t quite come, leaving a certain darkness out in the openness beyond the woods. Just in front of me, there was a single dirt road that moved from my left to my right. It was just wide enough to where two vehicles could pass each other, though it didn’t look like anyone ever drove out here. Though it was dark and I couldn’t see it in detail, the road appeared to be free of any tire trails. On either side of the dirt path, worn grass came out of the ground, which multiplied slightly as it moved away from the road, slowly fading into a sea of greenish-brown growth.

  My hand came off of the tree and I stepped out of the woods.

  Looking to my right, my jaw locked and my eyes spread open.

  The dirt road intersected with another path, which ran the opposite way of this road. Like the other, it was a dirt path. It was still too dark to see very far, but for as far as I could see, it was flat. All except for one single tree that stood just next to where the roads crossed each other. And I thought back to the picture Rob had shown me.

  The Crossroads.

  It looked exactly like the place where Robert Johnson had come and sold his soul to the Devil. Even the single tree looked just like it had in the photograph.

  But something didn’t feel right.

  This couldn’t be the same place. It had to be a coincidence. The Crossroads was now a historical site. It was a place that tourists would come to visit. I didn’t see any kind of state official historical markers or signs—nothing. And there sure as hell weren’t any people around.

  I slowly walked over to the tree, never looking around me. All of my focus was on the tree and the axis where the roads crossed.

  It had been about forty yards away from the point where I’d left the woods and, when I reached it, I stood in the middle of where the two paths crossed and stared up at the medium-sized pine. It was very old, and most of its leaves had long passed. I walked over to it and ran the palm of my hand down its side. Bark deteriorated and fell to the ground as I rubbed its trunk.

  I dropped the sledgehammer to the ground and rested my head against the tree as tears began to come from my eyes all over again.

  There was nowhere for me to go. It appeared dead for miles around me. I was tired, hungry, and no amount of adrenaline could carry me past the blank mirage in front of me.

  I was ready to die out here.

  Then, a voice behind me offered to provide me the opportunity to possibly make my new wish come true.

  29

  I’d heard the footsteps first. They’d been quiet while passing over the grass, even in the dead silent night. But when they’d hit the dirt path, they rang through my ears. I didn’t bother to turn around. I’d frozen, and realized that this might finally be my moment tonight. Perhaps I was born to die under this tree.

  “I see you made it.”

  I slowly turned around and confirmed who owned the familiar voice.

  Don looked back at me with a blank stare on his face.

  “This is where you wanted to be, isn’t it? The famous Crossroads. Well, here you are.”

  “But this isn’t it,” I said back.

  Don raised his eyebrows and slightly tilted his head to the side.

  “Oh, but it is,” he began. “This is the real Crossroads.”

  My eyes narrowed as I stared back at him.

  “See, a lot of people think that the whole story about Robert Johnson is a myth. It makes for a fun bedtime story in these parts, and provides this dumb ass state with some sorta rich history that they can grasp onto. Especially up here in the Delta. Ain’t no other reason for folks to come here than that.

  “But the truth is that, that place you guys were actually heading to, it’s a fake.”

  A fake?

  “This place here is a hidden secret, long buried by the Mississippi government and elders who live in the state. They built the other one in order to protect the sanctity of this place, keep people safe, and make a few bucks along the way.

  “But we know the truth, girl. That’s why we set up our camp so close to here. We wanted to be near its power. Because true evil lives in this place. Satan himself resides below this soil, and his spirt lives in all of us back there in that little town.”

  Don was pointing behind him toward the town. His eyes were dark, and I saw in him that he was telling the truth. At least, he believed it to be true.

  “The evil is inside me, girl. And he is going to allow me to do things to you that you wouldn’t ever be able to imagine.”

  I stared blankly, all my emotion gone.

  “See, I know what you did to my son.”

  Now, my eyes narrowed again.

  “Your son?”

  “Hank.”

  “That was your son?”

  His face turned pale and grim. “Yes, he was. And you killed him, you stupid fuckin’ bitch.”

  I’d begun to slowly back away, the sledgehammer vibrating in my trembling hand. Don crept toward me, not even worried about the bloody mallet I held.

  “You think what we did to your friends was bad? Huh? Do ya? Well, you just wait to see what I have in store for you. And we aren’t even gonna have to go far. It’s all going down right here, on the Devil’s playground. See, His power flows stronger within me here.”

  The wind began to pick up, which was strange out here. Especially at this time of night and this time of year. And not only did I feel it, but I heard it. The air began to whistle past, and I looked to see Don’s long hair flowing out to the side as he began to move toward me.

  I’d already backed up all the way against the tree, with nowhere else to go.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  But when I tried to raise the hammer, I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but it wouldn’t lift away from my side.

  Don looked down at the sledgehammer and smiled.

  “Having trouble there?” he asked, laughing.

  Shaking, I looked up at him. The tree felt as if it was becoming cold against the bare skin on my neck.

  “You really think that He is going to let you swing that hammer at me, here? You stupid bitch!”

  His hand wrapped around my throat, and I found myself gasping for air as my feet raised up off the ground, and my back slid up against the tree.

  The wind picked up and, beneath us, the ground had begun to quake.

  What the fuck is happening?

  “He’s here,�
�� Don said. He was laughing, and it echoed sonically in the open air.

  Though I couldn’t see the demons, I felt their presence. They were truly within Don.

  “You’re mine, bitch.”

  His grip tightened around my neck, and I swung my legs furiously, trying to breathe.

  Then, our attention was taken by another voice.

  “Don! Stop!”

  Don looked to his left. I tried, but my head wouldn’t turn, pinned against the tree with his large hand choking me. My bulging eyes were able to shift just enough to see the figure of a man.

  “Jerry, get the fuck outta here! I got this!”

  The wind still blew, but the ground had stopped moving.

  “No, Don. I’m not leaving. You’re changing the rules of the game!”

  Anger rose in Don’s voice.

  “There are no God damned rules!”

  “Let her go, Don!”

  The grip around my neck loosened, and I fell to the ground.

  “What are you gonna do, Jerry? You gonna shoot me? She killed my boy!”

  I looked over to the man and my eyes went wide.

  He was dressed in a brown sheriff’s outfit, and wore the hat to match. It was Sheriff Thomas, the man who’d pulled us over a few days ago.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jerry said. “But you know the rules of the game. She made it out. You gotta let her go.”

  I fell over from a sitting position, hitting the ground on my side. I continuously rubbed my neck and drew in gaping breaths. I peeked up to see Don looking down at me, before he looked back over at Sheriff Thomas.

  “I’m not fuckin’ leavin’ here without this bitch dead!”

  The wind had picked up with more malevolent force, and I started to fade.

  When I looked up again, Don was looking down at me. His hand was at his hip, gripping a holster that held a knife. I heard the hammer click back of a revolver, but Don’s eyes never left me.

  “Have fun in Hell,” Don whispered down at me.

  He quickly drew the large knife from his side and raised it over his head.

  I screamed.

  As he came down upon me, the last thing I heard before I passed out was the rapid fire of gunshots in the vast open air.

  30

  When I awoke, I was on my back, breathing steadily. The bed beneath me was only mildly comfortable, and I moved my eyes slowly around the space to see that I was in a room somewhere. It was dark, and I had trouble figuring out what kind of place I was in. Immediately, I assumed that I was back in the town, and I began to scream.

  A door opened at my left, and a beam of light came in from a hallway. An African-American woman in a light blue outfit ran to my side.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, sweetie. Just calm down.”

  I quaked under the sheets, and cried out as I felt something leave my arm.

  The woman turned around and yelled toward the hallway.

  “Assistance, please,” she yelled. “I need help in here!”

  Two more nurses came running into the room. One wore pink scrubs and was a blonde woman, young enough to have likely just graduated from nursing school. The other was an older woman in her fifties, wearing light blue scrubs and sporting an 80’s style perm. They ran to either side of the bed and held me down, trying to calm me.

  “Calm down, miss,” the older woman said from the right side of the bed. “Everything is alright.”

  I finally stopped shaking, and lay still in the bed, my stomach rising up and down under the covers as I drew in desperate breaths.

  “You’re at Veteran’s Memorial Hospital. You’re okay,” said the older nurse.

  “Where is he?”

  The women passed confused glances at one another.

  “Where is who, darlin’?” the African-American nurse asked me. My eyes went to her name tag and I saw that her name was Toni.

  “Don. The man who was trying to kill me. Where is he?”

  The women glared at each other, and Toni looked back down at me.

  “I think you were having a bad dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream! I was out in the woods, at The Crossroads, and the man had me around the neck.”

  Toni ran her hand through my hair. “Ms. Long, you were in a car accident. Sheriff Thomas found you and helped get you here to the hospital.”

  “A car accident? No, I…”

  She cut me off. “Look here, Ms. Long. I’m going to have Heather here put the IV back in your arm. And I’m going to give you an anesthetic so that you can get some more rest.”

  I brought my head off the bed and pleaded with her to keep me awake.

  “No, please. I want to stay awake, please.”

  But the needle was already in my arm, and within minutes, I was gone to the world again.

  ***

  The next time I awoke, I was still lying in that hospital bed. The sun was out, creeping through the windows and warming the chilled hospital room. I felt like I hadn’t seen daylight in ages, and took a moment to enjoy something that I’d taken for granted so many times in my life.

  A short time later, there was a knock at the door, and a new nurse came walking into the room with a clipboard. She was smiling as she approached the bed.

  “Good morning, Ms. Long. My name is Shelby and I’ll be your nurse until later this afternoon.”

  Still waking up, I mumbled, “How long have I been here?”

  “Two days. Your family is here. They’re going to come in and see you in a little bit.”

  “I want to see them now.”

  Shelby shook her head, taking some notes down on the clipboard while she checked a machine next to the bed.

  “You can in a little bit. There is an officer here who wants to have a chat with you first.”

  I looked toward the door, and a very familiar face walked into the room.

  Sheriff Thomas entered the room, wearing the same brown uniform I’d seen him in before. The only difference now was that his hat was removed, showing his balding head with only a ring of hair going around the sides to the back. He nodded at Shelby, mouthing the words “Thank you” as she walked out the door.

  I started to try and sit up, but my body fought against my urge, and I was gasping for air. The heart monitor to my left beeped a little faster. Sheriff Thomas saw that I was afraid, and put his palms out in front of him.

  “Whoa, whoa. Hang on, sweetie. Everything is okay.”

  “What are you doing here? What were you doing out there?” I asked.

  “Just calm down,” he said. “I helped you get out of there.”

  A knock sounded twice on the door, and Shelby poked her head inside.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Everything is fine,” Sheriff Thomas answered.

  Shelby looked over to me. “Ms. Long?”

  The beep of the machine had leveled, and I slowly nodded my head.

  “Alright, just buzz if you need anything,” Shelby said, and she shut the door again.

  He moved to the end of the bed, on my side where I could easily see him, and looked down at me.

  “How you feelin’?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Tired. I’ve slept the whole time I’ve been here, so I don’t really know what else to say.”

  He nodded.

  “What were you doing out there?” I asked once again.

  The Sheriff ignored the question. He moved closer to me, halfway up the side of the bed. The smell of a freshly burnt cigarette was etched into his clothes and came off his teeth as he talked.

  “You and your friends…You shouldn’t have been out there.”

  Thomas took a seat on the bed next to my left hip, and I slid to my right just a little.

  “Did you find the bodies?” I asked.

  Again, Sheriff Thomas completely ignored me. So, I asked the primary question that had been on my mind since I’d woken up for a few minutes the night before.

  “Why did the nurse last night tell me th
at I was in a car wreck?”

  He narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer to me. “Because that’s what happened.”

  A chill walked up my spine and I started to shake my head.

  “N-no. B-b-but, Sheriff Thomas, that’s not what hap—“

  Before I knew it, his large hand was around my throat. I tried to scream out, but the choke didn’t allow me to. Simultaneously, he reached over and shut off the heart monitor so the nurses wouldn’t be alarmed when my BPM’s started to flatline. Then that hand went over my mouth.

  “Listen to me right now, bitch,” Thomas started. “You were in a car wreck. Do you understand that? That’s what happened. And if anyone ever hears otherwise, we will find you, and we will fucking slaughter you and your entire family.”

  My eyes bulged from my head and I could hardly breathe. If the heart rate monitor had still been on, it would have been beeping rapidly at this point

  “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. But I swear to God, if you yell, or scream, or call out, you and your family are dead. You wouldn’t want Don showing up at your parents’ house in Madison, would you?”

  Don? I’d begun to cry. He loosened his grip slightly to where I could breathe at least a little bit better, but he still held my throat. I thought back to that night. The last thing I’d heard was gunshots before I’d passed out. I thought that he killed Don.

  “Are you going to play nice? Or are we going to have to recreate everything you saw done to your friends with your parents and your little sister?”

  Bawling, I nodded. All I wanted was for him to let me go.

  When he took his hands off my throat and my mouth, I gasped for air, putting my hands to my throat to massage it.

  A few minutes later, my breathing leveled out and Sheriff Thomas flipped the switch on the machine.

  Shelby, my nurse, came strolling back into the room with a smile on her face. Her brown ponytail swung with the same consistency and rhythm as a Newton’s cradle as she walked, and the fluorescent lights in the room glared off of her baby blue eyes. Her face changed a little bit when she saw that I’d been crying, but I think she just assumed that I was a little traumatized with the Sheriff in the room asking me questions about the “car accident”.