by Cullen Bunn
I looked out the window, the shadows of trees sliding across the glass. I watched the woods for any sign of the fetch.
“Uncle Shorty,” I said, “can I ask you a question?”
“Sure thing.”
“Why are you afraid of dogs?”
My uncle looked over at me and pursed his lips. “Who told you that?”
I slouched down in my seat. The truck climbed a hill, and we turned onto the paved road leading to downtown Crooked Hills.
“I’m not afraid of dogs,” Shorty said. “Not really. I used to love them.”
“But not any more?”
“No.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Not any more.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“When I was a boy, my daddy found this little beagle puppy on the side of the road. Back then, it wasn’t nothing for someone to throw a dog or cat out if they didn’t want anything to do with it. Daddy brought this puppy home and gave it to my brothers and me to take care of. The puppy grew up to be a right fine dog. We named him Petey, after the dog on the Little Rascals.”
He stopped at the crossroads and waited for the light to turn green.
“Petey liked to run at night,” Shorty said. “Beagles are natural born hunters, and Petey ran through the woods from dusk til dawn, looking for rabbits and squirrels and birds. Every morning, though, he’d be waiting at our back door, tail wagging, waiting for us to throw him some breakfast scraps. Then one morning, he didn’t come home.”
The pickup rattled over the railroad tracks. Crushed pennies glittered in the afternoon sun.
“I went out in the woods to look for him. I called for him til my throat was raw. When I found him, Petey was dead. He was all torn to shreds. At first, I didn’t know what happened to him, but I looked up and saw a whole pack of dirty, filthy wild dogs stalking me from a nearby hill. There must have been a dozen of them, some small, some large, and they chased me down, barking and growling. One of them caught hold of my arm and tore me up pretty good. I had to get two dozen stitches.”
Shorty held his arm out to me. Nasty-looking scars ran all the way from his wrist to his elbow. I was surprised I hadn’t seen them before.
“I like to think Petey was trying to run those dogs off when they killed him.” The muscles in my uncle’s jaw popped. “I’ll never forget that dog that bit me, though, yellow and mangy and covered in ticks.”
Sounds like the fetch, I thought. Surely it can’t be the same dog.
“What happened to the dogs?” My voice cracked just a little.
“My daddy and brothers went out in the woods looking for them, but they never saw them again.” He drew in a deep breath. “Ever since I just haven’t been partial to dogs. Figure I’ll never have another one as good as Petey, anyway.”
We pulled to a stop outside the library. Uncle Shorty let the truck idle as I opened the door and hopped out. He promised to return in about an hour. He winked.
“Try not to get into any scuffles this time.”
“I’ll try.”
The truck rumbled off, and I walked along the flower-lined path to the library.
I almost didn’t see Mrs. Trilby kneeling in the shade of the covered porch. She worked with a decorative wooden planter, pushing dark soil up around the stems of purple flowers. She wore a pair of heavy worker’s gloves, a size or two too big for her. Dirt covered her arms up to the elbows. She pulled a couple of wriggling earthworms from a plastic sandwich bag. She pinched them between clumsy, gloved fingers and dropped them into the planter.
“Hi, Mrs. Trilby,” I said.
“Hello, Charlie. How’s your vacation?”
Whether you can tell the future or you’re just a busybody, I thought, you probably already know.
“It’s going just fine.” I eyed the flowers. “What’s with the worms?”
“They help enrich the soil.” She smiled. When she looked up, a strand of dark hair fell out from beneath the floppy hat she wore. She swept it back with a gloved hand, leaving a smear of dirt on her cheek. She was pretty for a teacher. “Are you interested in gardening? Or just in worms?”
“Just curious,” I said.
She went back to work, and I stepped through the front door. Tiptoeing past the snoozing Postmaster, I navigated through the maze of books to the main desk. Mr. Goodwin perched upon what looked like a throne of hardbacks. He held a musty-looking book in one hand, examining the spine for defects.
“Ah! Young master Charles!” He looked up and set the book aside. “Come to browse our selection again?”
“I thought I’d take another look at the folklore books, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” He stood up, and the teetering mound of books beneath him collapsed like a house of cards. He paid no heed to the mess as he passed me. “This way.”
The books were now located in a different part of the house, set off from the disarray of the rest of the collection and displayed neatly on their own shelf. On one of the shelves sat a framed photograph of Mr. Goodwin, along with a placard reading “Local Author W. D. Goodwin. Special Collection.” A padded reading chair stood beside the shelf.
Funny, when I first visited, the books had been hidden under a pile. Now that someone had come looking for the books, Mr. Goodwin’s head was swelling like a balloon. He had set up a special display just for his books. Who was I to burst his bubble? Besides, I didn’t want to get splattered with brains when his swelled head popped.
I thanked him, sat in the chair, and cracked open one of the books.
I scanned the table of contents for any mention of Maddie. I came up empty with the first two books. They focused primarily on ghosts but not witches. But when I opened the copy of Mystery and Lore of the Hillfolk, I turned right to a section on the area’s most feared witch.
“Even as Maddie was put to death,” the book read, “she swore to return from the grave to take revenge against the townsfolk of Crooked Hills. The men and women who accused her took her at her word, for no witch may break a promise once it has crossed her lips. For this reason, they dismembered her, burying her body parts in hidden graves throughout the county.”
I paged through the book, which traced the stories of witches through the years. Even though the coven had been driven away before Maddie died, some twisted souls still returned to the area from time to time, trying to find a way to carry on Maddie’s evil legacy.
More than thirty years ago, a grocer named Silas Kerr thought he heard Maddie speaking to him in his dreams, and he kidnapped a girl to be sacrificed upon the Bleeding Rock. Luckily, Kerr was caught and arrested before he harmed her. They say he screamed Maddie’s name as he was dragged away and cried that his nightmares would never stop until blood was spilled.
And just ten years ago, pets started vanishing from back yards, and the townsfolk blamed it on Maddie. The pets were found, all still alive but nearly starved to death, in the cellar of an abandoned house. The word “Someday” had been written thousands of times upon the concrete walls.
Someday.
Nearby, a floorboard creaked, and a shadow swept across my face. I looked up and saw Mrs. Trilby stalking toward me. She had a blank expression on her face, and her hair hung down before her eyes. The work gloves she still wore were caked with thick dirt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Excuse me?” I sat up straight in the chair. “I don’t understand—”
It gave me the willies, the way she looked at me.
“You stay away from that stone,” she said. “Do you here me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. The Bleeding Rock. I smell it on you. Stay away from it.”
How did she know about the Bleeding Rock? Could she really foretell the future? Either way, she creeped me out.
I started to stand, but she rushed up in front of me and pushed me back into the chair. She clutched at me, and I pushed her hands away. I kno
cked the gloves from her hands—revealing skeletal claws.
The bones dripped wet earth like rotting flesh.
Worms slithered around her knuckles.
She scraped at my cheeks, my eyes—
I woke up. I jumped from the chair and dropped the book from my lap to the floor. Wiping drool from my chin I noticed my shirt collar was soaked with it. I must have dozed off for some time.
Picking up the book, I saw the pages had fallen open to a story titled, “Dreams of the Bleeding Rock.”
No kidding, I thought.
“Charles?” Mr. Goodwin said. “Are you all right?”
I hadn’t even realized he was standing there.
One second, I was skimming the book for any information on witches. Next thing I know, Mr. Goodwin is gently shaking my shoulder.
My ears burned. How embarrassing.
“Must have dozed off,” I said.
“So it appears.” Mr. Goodwin’s lips curled in disappointment. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“About what?”
“About the dream.” Mr. Goodwin tapped his chin. “I have an idea what you’re up to, Charles. Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you into trouble. I’d like to help you if I could.”
“How did you know?”
“You were moaning her name in your sleep. You’ve been to the Bleeding Rock, haven’t you?”
I swallowed, nodded.
“Whatever you’re doing with that witch,” Mr. Goodwin said, “you must stop while you’re ahead. I’ve seen too many people get hurt by poking their noses where they don’t belong. She gets under your skin. Into your skull.”
“You mean the dreams?”
“If you keep going back, they may never stop.”
“Do you have the dreams, too?”
“I used to. Many years ago. When I started doing research for my first book, I went into the woods almost every day. I took a metal detector with me, hoping to find that famous ring of Maddie’s.”
“Did the ring give her powers?” I asked. “Like Green Lantern or something?”
Mr. Goodwin looked confused. Obviously, he had no idea who Green Lantern was. “The ring was passed down from generation to generation in Maddie’s family. It was, by all accounts, her most prized possession. It wasn’t the source of her power, but it was a focus for her, making her magic stronger and more terrible. I thought if I could find it, I’d be able to generate a lot of publicity.”
“What did you find?”
“A bunch of loose change, bottle caps, and old buttons. Then the nightmares started. At first I thought it nothing more than an overactive imagination and a rich diet. Then I realized Maddie was trying to communicate with me. Trying to warn me.”
“How come you didn’t tell that story in any of your books?” I asked.
“I couldn’t.” He shuddered. “It was much too frightening. Now I never go into the woods under any circumstances. And if you’re wise, my young friend, you’ll respect my example.”
Outside, a horn blared. My hour was up. Uncle Shorty was waiting for me.
“I have to go,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Remember what I said,” Mr. Goodwin called after me. “Stay out of those woods. Nothing but madness and death await you if you meddle with Maddie Someday!”
Madness and death.
Someday.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AGAINST MY BETTER JUDGEMENT—and natural sleep patterns—that night I found myself hiding in the brush near the Bleeding Rock, Marty and Lisa at my side. The moon stared down at us, the shadows giving it the look of a glowering skull. Fog was light, at least so far, but the day’s heat had been sapped from the air. It wasn’t cold, but it was cool, and thinking about Maddie Someday made my skin crawl like an army of frozen ants marching all over me. I should have caught forty winks before venturing into the woods again, but my mind raced too much for me to sleep. We were plenty early, and I couldn’t stop yawning.
Once again, we had slathered ourselves in Scent-Be-Gone. We looked pretty silly, the three of us hiding in the bushes, each of us pinching our nose shut while we waited to get used to the smell.
“It stinks worse now,” Marty said, “than it did last night.”
With his nose pinched shut, his voice sounded nasal and robotic. I couldn’t help but laugh. Pretty soon, we were all laughing. But when a cracking sound came from the darkness—from somewhere behind us—we fell silent. I released my nose. The stench was the least of my problems.
“Do you think it’s the dog?” I whispered.
“Quiet,” Lisa said.
Another noise resounded through the gloom. This time, it came from somewhere in front of us. Something approached from both directions. The fetch and the goblin? I wondered. I should have asked Mr. Goodwin about the witch’s servants. I took turns watching the Bleeding Rock and glancing over my shoulder.
The fetch appeared in front of us, slinking through the brush on the other side of the Bleeding Rock. The dog circled the chalk gray stone a couple of times, sniffing around the bare ground, like a bloodhound trying to pick up a scent.
But if the fetch is over there, I thought, looking over my shoulder, what’s that behind us?
In the distance, the train rattled, the horn blaring, and the dog threw its head back and howled right along with it.
I kept looking behind me. I couldn’t shake the idea that something was sneaking up on us.
“It’s moving,” Lisa said.
I looked up just in time to see the fetch dart into the trees.
“Let’s go,” Marty said.
He was anxious to catch up with the dog, but he let Lisa lead the way. I would have rather stuck around to find out what was following us, but I wasn’t about to let my friends ditch me. I tried to forget about the goblin... if there was such a thing.
We kept the flashlight off, negotiating the forest by the light of the moon. I wished I hadn’t lost the other light. Marty promised we’d go looking for it sometime soon, before his parents realized it was missing. Of course, that didn’t help me feel any better now, with the shadows pressing in on me.
We tracked the dog quite a ways into the hills. At times, we had to scurry up sheer walls of dirt and rock and mud, using the roots of trees as hand holds. Lisa moved fast, ducking branches, climbing hills, jumping creeks, and Marty chased only a few steps behind her. I did my best to keep up. Occasionally we caught glimpses of the fetch—a dark shadow flitting through the trees— but we kept our distance. We didn’t want the dog to see us—or smell us. Luckily, we had Lisa with us to pick up the trail again whenever we lost sight of the dog.
It took us fifteen minutes to find the fetch again. When we did, we perched on top of a wide hill, looking down as the dog burrowed between the roots of a large, dark tree.
“It’s found something,” Marty said.
The fetch tossed clumps of dirt out from between its hind legs as it dug. Finally, it stopped digging and stuck its nose into the hole. It snorted around a bit, then shoved its snout into the earth and came back up holding something round and caked in dirt.
“Do you see that?” Marty asked.
“What is it?” Lisa asked.
I didn’t answer, but I saw it plain as day.
A human skull.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SKULL.
Its empty eye sockets stared at me. Wormy dirt trickled from the yellowed bone. The jaw lolled open in an unheard scream. Patches of long stringy hair trailed down from the decaying flesh. Mud filled the nose cavity.
Clutching the skull in its jaws, the fetch loped along the hill.
We ducked down the other side, hoping the dog didn’t see or hear us.
The dog let out a low growl, then tore off through the brush.
“Let’s go,” Marty whispered, “before we lose him again.”
“I’m not so sure we should follow him any more,” I said. “It just dug up a human skull!”
“I know it was
a skull,” Marty said. “All the more reason to find out what’s going on.”
“You realize what’s going on, don’t you?”
Marty’s blank expression told me he didn’t.
The explanation blurted out of my mouth. “The dog’s going out into the woods and digging up all of Maddie Someday’s body parts.”
Marty’s brow wrinkled.
“Why would it be doing that?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know. Could be Maddie’s ghost is trying to collect all her pieces in one place. Maybe she’s trying to bring herself back to life.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Lisa laughed nervously. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
I nodded.
“Why was it digging near my house?” Marty asked. “Do you think one of Maddie’s parts was buried right outside my front yard?”
“Unless I’m wrong,” I said. “I’m betting one of Maddie Someday’s body parts was buried near Marty’s house, but the dog’s already found it.”
Instead of being frightened, though, Marty grinned. “This I’ve got to see for myself!” He set off through the trees again.
Lisa looked at me like I’d lost my mind. She took off after my cousin.
Smart, I thought. Real smart.
We followed the fetch deep into the woods. Eventually, we came upon a large clearing. A dilapidated cabin squatted in the center of the patch of bare land. The walls were unpainted, brown and cracked, and creeping vines—no longer green but brittle husks—crawled up the rotting timber. The vines might have been the only thing holding the house together. Candlelight glowed through the windows. Along the side of the building was a set of heavy bulkhead doors leading down into a root cellar.
Trees were bent and crooked, leafless but covered in thick patches of moss hanging from the skeletal branches. The wind rushed though the hills, whooshing eerily and rattling the tree limbs. The moon shown through the clouds, a great milky witching eye staring at us. The clouds themselves looked like a blanket of thick fog waiting to settle down on top of us.
