by Jeremy Bates
Because Roy didn’t want to sit beside her during the car trip, Danny got to, and he was fine with that arrangement. In fact, he had been thrilled every time his knee touched Peggy’s, or his shoulder brushed hers.
Ten minutes ago they had pulled into a picnic spot in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Roy’s mother had packed a cooler full of egg-salad sandwiches. Roy had wolfed his down, along with a cold can of Pepsi, then told his parents he and Danny were going to go ahead to check out Brandywine Falls. Danny had wanted to stay behind, so he would be close to Peggy, but he couldn’t say this, of course, and he obediently jogged after Roy, still finishing off his sandwich as he went.
Halfway to the falls, however, Roy left the trail and began making his way through the forest.
Danny hesitated. “Where are you going?”
“Come on!”
Danny followed.
When Roy found a glade suitable to his liking, he plopped down on his butt and took a sad, bent cigarette from the pocket of his shorts, along with a book of matches.
Danny’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get that?”
“My dad. Don’t worry. He doesn’t know.”
Roy stuck the cigarette expertly between his lips.
“You smoked before?” Danny said, impressed.
“A few times,” Roy said proudly.
He lit the cigarette with a matchstick and sucked hard. His face turned gray, then he bent forward and began coughing up a lung.
Danny bust a gut laughing. Roy must have kept coughing for a full thirty seconds. He was holding the cigarette toward Danny, telling him to try it.
“No way,” Danny said.
“Don’t be a chicken!”
“Look what happened to you.”
“Chicken!”
“I don’t want it.”
“You’re such a wimp.”
“You’re a wimp.”
“At least I tried it.”
“Try it again.”
Roy contemplated the cigarette, then tossed it away.
“Seriously, Danny,” he said, “you’re such a wimp.”
“I know you are, but what am I?”
“Oh jeez.” Roy rolled his eyes, then jumped to his feet. “I gotta take a dump.”
“Right here?”
“No, not right here, you perv. What, you wanna watch?”
“Then where?”
“In the trees.”
“I think there were toilets back at the picnic area.”
“Those things are disgusting. You can get diseases from the seats.”
“You don’t even have toilet paper.”
“You can lick my ass.”
“You’re so gross.”
“I’ll be back.”
Danny watched Roy forge a path through the trees until he was out of sight. Then Danny lay down to get comfortable, folding his hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. Much of it was blocked by the canopy of branches overhead, but he could see bits and pieces, all bright blue, not a cloud anywhere.
He closed his eyes and wondered where he would be sleeping tonight. Would he have his own bedroom? Or would he share a room with Roy? That would be fun. They could stay up late, talking or reading comic books, like they did when they had sleepovers. Roy’s parents were pretty cool with curfews and stuff like that. They let Roy do a lot of things Danny’s own parents would never let him do. And besides, it was summer break. It wasn’t like they had school the next day.
And what about Peggy? he wondered. She was a girl, so she would have her own room, obviously. Danny wondered if he should try to kiss her at some point. He was a year younger after all. He was only going into grade six. She probably still thought of him as a little kid. Then again, she’d laughed at some of his jokes in the car. Didn’t that mean she liked him? Maybe if he could keep making her laugh, she would kiss him. Maybe they would even get married one day. That would be pretty neat. Then Roy would be his brother, or half-brother…
As Danny unwittingly drifted into a light sleep, his thoughts turned to what Roy’s dad had told them about Helltown during the car ride. The place was right around here somewhere. Supposedly there had been a bunch of devil worshippers a few years back who lived in the woods and kidnapped people. But then some army guy, Special Forces or something like that, tracked them all down and burned them alive in some church. Roy’s dad stopped there because Roy’s mom told him he was going to give “the kids” nightmares. Roy and Danny protested, they wanted to hear more, but Roy’s dad changed the topic. Sometimes it seemed to Danny that Roy’s mom ruled Roy’s family. It was true she was stricter than Roy’s dad (which was still pretty lenient by Danny’s parents’ standards), and she could be scary sometimes when she got angry, but for the most part Danny liked her. He just better make sure he stayed out of her bad books for the next week…
The twenty-six-foot-long green anaconda slithered silently through the deadfall toward the sleeping boy, forked tongue flicking in and out of its lipless grimace, collecting the sleeping boy’s scent particles from the air and the ground. It had devoured a similar creature years before, on the night it had escaped the House in the Woods, and like all the raccoons and deer and foxes and rodents it had subsisted on since, it knew the creature to be easy prey.
When the snake came to within striking distance, it opened its mouth one hundred eighty degrees and sunk its rear-facing teeth into the boy’s shoulder. The boy awoke, jerking then thrashing, trying to flee, but the snake was already coiling its body around its prey, constricting and wrapping, around and around and around, until the boy went still.
Then it ate.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read Helltown. If you enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on the Amazon product page. Reviews might not matter much to the big-name authors, but they can really help the small guys to grow their readership.
Also, you can check out www.jeremybatesbooks.com for info on my other novels and novellas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Bates is the award-winning author of several novels and short stories. He writes suspense, horror, and thrillers. The novels in his “World’s Scariest Places” series are set in real locations, and so far include Suicide Forest in Japan, The Catacombs in Paris, Helltown in Ohio, and (forthcoming) Island of the Dolls in Mexico. You can check out any of these places on the web, or visit his website at: JEREMYBATESBOOKS.COM
For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of The Taste of Fear.
