Savage Woods

by Mary SanGiovanni

  “Oh my God,” Pete said. “What the . . . what happened to them?” He considered for a moment trying to help them, to cut them down.

  Julia limped forward, seeming to read his thoughts. “We can’t help them. We can’t touch them. We just have to go past them.”

  Pete looked at her, surprised. “Uh . . . okay. Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I think they’re a trick of the woods. Or a trap. It doesn’t want us to go this way, so it’s trying to scare us into backtracking. Or if we don’t—if we try to cut them down, they become something else and attack us.” She clutched his arm tighter.

  “Okay, then. Can we go around them?”

  The bodies, hanging like grotesque lanterns, swung slightly in the breeze. Pete turned the flashlight in different directions, searching possible alternate routes, but the bodies were everywhere, skinned and glistening with blood, surrounding them, closing them in.

  “Guess, not,” he muttered.

  “Let’s just go through them,” Julia whispered. She was pale, but there was resoluteness in her eyes. By instinct, she pulled the ax closer to her.

  As he and Julia crept close to them, the bodies collectively made a kind of muffled wheezing, rasping noise, though how they could was beyond Pete. A sickening smell crawled up his nose and down his throat, and he gagged. It was not a meat-rotting smell, not an animal death smell like he expected of eviscerated men and women, but rather that of some rotting plant material, like grass or vegetables.

  They passed under the bodies. Looking up at them, Pete could see them trembling slightly, as if cold. He supposed it probably was cold without skin. He wondered if any of them were the people who had gone missing in Nilhollow. He shivered, too.

  The shuddering chests and slight movements of the limbs seemed to indicate the bodies were in pain. Some oozed greenish-yellow fluids. By the coppery light that emanated from beneath them, the inverted faces looked like masks pasted on. He felt Julia recoil against him. He looked back to check on her. She looked disgusted but determined to go forward.

  Just as Pete and Julia reached the midst of the hanging bodies, they heard a series of groans. The bodies began jerking the ropes from which they were hanging as their limbs flailed wildly. The groans became whines that built quickly in volume and pitch.

  “What are they doing?” Julia’s voice was little more than a breath strangled by her terror.

  “I don’t know.” Pete put up a protective arm to move her behind him, and she limped obligingly.

  One by one, the bodies dropped to the ground all around Pete and Julia.

  “This is bad,” Julia muttered, leaning into Pete to keep moving.

  The jumbled heaps of inverted meat began to rise to unsteady, bone-and-muscle feet.

  “That’s worse,” Pete said.

  “Run,” Julia told him.

  “But your ankle—”

  The corpses began moving forward, closing them in.

  “Run!” Julia shouted, and the two bolted into the woods.

  * * *

  Mallon knew a Nanticote-Lenape woman who he’d met, ironically enough, through Joe Franklin. Her name was Olivia Standing Deer, and Mallon used any excuse he could to visit her coffee shop. She was beautiful; she had sharp cheekbones and pouting lips that never quite found their way into a full smile, a face both proud and graceful. She was thin but not too thin, not anorexic like some millennial model but healthy, curvy the way Mallon liked. She had long, shining black hair that she either braided or, more often, left to fly free, and the darkest, richest, most captivating brown eyes. She often wore a T-shirt with some writing or other on it and blue jeans with boots. She was proud of her heritage, but at the same time, she refused, as she put it, “to be the token dime-store Indian for people to gawk at.” She was feisty and complicated, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, and Mallon thought that if he wasn’t ten years too old for her, he’d have already tried to make her wife number three.

  That evening’s visit was more for business than pleasure, though. She knew a little of her people’s old language and more of their old stories and legends, and he thought she might be able to shed some light on some of the contents of Kathy’s occult file.

  He walked into the warmly lit café and brightened when he saw her at the counter. It was evidently a slow night; a thirty-something sat sipping from a mug and reading a paper in a booth by the corner, and an old man at the far end of the counter was absently munching on a Danish while reading a newspaper. Good, Mallon thought. Fewer ears and fewer distractions.

  Olivia gave him a warm and genuine smile when she saw him, and waved him over to a seat by the counter. He sat, putting the file down next to a clean and empty coffee mug.

  “Hey, Stan. What can I get for ya tonight?” she asked, her hand already reaching for the mug.

  “Nothing tonight, I’m afraid,” he said with a note of apology in his voice. “I’m working a case. And actually, I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Me?” She looked surprised. “How?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me what the Lenape know about Nilhollow.”

  She gave him an odd look. “Are you serious? That’s going to help you with a case?”

  “A missing persons case, and yeah, I really think it might. More than you might think.”

  She resumed wiping the counter, obviously hesitant to answer him. “Well,” she finally said, “I know my people don’t like it. Don’t like to talk about it. Never have. My grandmother used to say it was Nilhollow and not the white men that chased our people up to Canada.”

  “What do they think is wrong with it?”

  Olivia tilted her head and looked up at him. “Manëtuwàk—spirits. You know, elemental spirits of the trees, rocks, water, wind. That sort of thing.”

  “But I thought your people used to be all in touch with nature and stuff. Worshipped nature gods and whatnot.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “Yes, we hold a very healthy reverence for all of nature, particularly for the manëtuwàk. But the ones in Nilhollow are believed to be crazy. You know, dangerous. But it’s not their fault. Something in Nilhollow poisoned everything. Drove the manëtuwàk crazy, or drove them away. It made Nilhollow soulless and filled that void with corruption. I think my grandma once said it was a kind of power that came up from the ground. Not a being, not a spirit like the manëtuwàk, but an intelligent force of some kind. Something older than the spirits, older than the world as we know it—older than the tribes of ten thousand years ago, certainly. They called it the Turning of the Earth. Apparently, at some point, this force, this Turning, grew strong enough and spread far enough that Nilhollow was no longer safe. It chased away the animals, the insects, and birds. But it caught up the manëtuwàk and hurt them. It scared the people. Supposedly, my ancestors, the healers of the Lenni-Lenape tribe, couldn’t get rid of it or reverse it, but they could limit it. They performed a ritual to bind the poison to the area of Nilhollow and keep it from spreading.”

  Mallon nodded, glad to hear the information in the file verified by another source. “And the—what did you call them?”

  “Manëtuwàk.”

  “Right. Is it the manëtuwàk they believe to be hurting human beings, or the Turning?”

  “Both.”

  Mallon nodded. “But if your ancestors bound this force, this Turning, then what is there to be afraid of?”

  Olivia shrugged. “The bonds don’t last forever. They’ve been weakening for decades, maybe centuries. Without the binding rituals, the Turning will just pick up where it left off. Keep spreading.”

  “And is there a way to, you know, restrengthen them? Re-bind the Turning, I mean?

  Olivia narrowed her eyes. “What is this about, Stan? What do old Lenape stories have to do with your case?”

  Mallon shifted on his seat. “Afraid I can’t get into specifics, Liv. But I can tell you that two of my cops, guys I feel responsible for, are missing in Nilhollow. And what I’m dealing with, what I
think is responsible for their disappearance, may involve people who believe very much in everything you’re telling me, so the more you can tell me, the better.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Stan.” She looked genuinely concerned, and it warmed him. “But, honestly, I don’t know much else.” She turned and began fixing him his usual—coffee, black—in a to-go cup. “I’m not an expert. In my family, they were just bedtime stories, urban legends, not much different than what the old white folks around here tell of the place.”

  “So you can’t tell me anything about the ritual your ancestors performed? What they said?”

  Olivia turned and slid his coffee to him. “Are you kidding? Do you know the words to rituals your Irish ancestors performed ten thousand years ago?” She smiled. “Honey, I get that in movies, magical Indians always offer great ancient wisdom to help save the day, but this isn’t the movies, and you’re talking to the wrong Indian if you want that kind of help.”

  Mallon conceded her point with a shrug. “Okay, but . . . but if I showed you some words, would you at least be able to tell me how to pronounce them?”

  “Uh, sure, I guess. If you think it will help your case.”

  Mallon offered her his most charming smile. “I certainly think so.”

  Softening, she smiled back, that coy turn of her lips he loved so much. “Okay, cowboy. Show me what you’ve got.”

  ELEVEN

  The manëtuwàk were distracted, even in their rage, by a presence more alarming than the two with axes. They slowed their pursuit, some of their blind anger dissipating. They rustled and whispered to themselves, blowing like a breeze toward the edge of the woods. Something was happening just outside of Nilhollow, where the roaring, wheeled beasts vomited and swallowed the moving ones. There were red, blue, and white lights, and mumbled language. There were dogs sniffing and barking from the ends of long ropes. It was a gathering of the moving ones. They were planning on entering Nilhollow. There were many of them—twenty-five, maybe thirty. They were coming.

  What the manëtuwàk found distressing were the moving ones’ barking tools; there were many of them, sitting in skins on the hips of the moving ones. They spit bugs which split bark and wood and burned through the flesh of animals and killed them. The moving one they had torn apart had attacked them with such a barking tool, and they decidedly hated it almost as much as the ax. Their rage flared.

  There was more, though. One of the moving ones had brought other kinds of tools which they thought might be worse than the axes or the barking tools. The manëtuwàk weren’t sure what those new tools might be, because the thoughts of that moving one were . . . shielded somehow. It made them uneasy.

  To add to their unease, the Kèkpëchehëlat sensed the moving ones assembled just outside Nilhollow, as well. The manëtuwàk could feel its rage-sickness progressing from a heat to a storm-cloud. It was tearing through the woods like a high and howling wind, swirling the darkness around it and feeding on it as it fed on the power of the chasm.

  The moving ones! It was heading toward the moving ones. It had known they would come. They were what the Kèkpëchehëlat—and the chasm—were waiting for. The trees quivered.

  * * *

  By the time Mallon made it to Nilhollow, it was dark. Five state park rangers, fifteen state troopers, four guys from the Missing Persons Unit, two with dogs, and four local guys had already gathered into little groups, talking, smoking, and drinking coffee. A team of CSIs in white scrubs were all over Grainger’s and Perry’s patrol car, collecting fingerprints and fibers. One shook his head at Mallon as he passed by; there was nothing, no clue as to where the missing officers went.

  The local police had taped off the area, and the press had already begun to congregate beyond, craning their necks and buzzing like flies every time an officer came within fifty feet of them. They tried swarming Mallon as he got out of his car. They seemed to see something in his expression and his steely refusal to even acknowledge their presence, so they backed off, waiting for easier prey.

  Detectives Colby and Sarinelli, along with two rangers and some of the other officers, were gathered over the hood of a black sedan, consulting the map of Nilhollow he had given them. They were pointing and conferring, speaking in hushed voices more for the purpose of appearing in charge than because they had anything to say that the other officers couldn’t hear. He didn’t dislike Colby and Sarinelli, but would not have handed out any promotions to them, either. They could often be dull and unimaginative, but they worked like horses. As long as they put their time and effort in now, Mallon had no problem with them.

  They looked up as Mallon joined them. He nodded and responded to their greetings.

  “Captain,” Colby said with a grim smile and a handshake. “We’ve got seven groups of four waiting for your go-ahead, plus Sarinelli and I and Ranger Perkins here, coordinating. They’re your men, so as far as jurisdiction, everyone’s in agreement that the lead on this should be you.” He smiled in a way that made Mallon think his being given lead had less to do about respect and his capabilities and more to do with humoring the old captain who had let two of his officers get lost in the big, scary woods.

  Mallon chose to work with their veneer for now. “Right. Let’s get this going. Full sweep—place is no more than a mile square. We should be able to cover that pretty easily.”

  The other men nodded.

  “Okay, listen up,” he shouted, and was vaguely pleased that his voice still commanded authority, old captain or not. The crowd of officers gathered closer. The media strained to hear, but he dropped his voice to a no-nonsense rumble. “Four people are missing—two civilians and two cops. We’re going to search every tree, every blade of grass until we find them. We bring in the lights, the dogs, all of it. Tag whatever you find, document it, and report to the command post immediately if you have a lead. I want those people found.

  “One more thing. It’s important, and frankly, I don’t give a damn whether you think it sounds crazy or not. I can’t impress upon you strongly enough to be ready for anything in those woods. I mean anything. You know the stories about Nilhollow. We all do. I have reason to believe these disappearances may be connected somehow to those stories—or to people who believe wholeheartedly in them, which would make those people dangerous to cops. Be careful out there tonight. Be on guard and stay with your unit. Nothing is too weird to believe tonight, got it?”

  The assembled men and women were silent, their expressions mixed: He saw respect for his position and his directives masking confusion, surprise, and impatience. He hated being looked at that way. He supposed Colby and Sarinelli were silently questioning the wisdom in handing over the lead to a superstitious old man. He suppressed a defensive grunt.

  Waving it off, he said, “Just be ready. For your sake, and my peace of mind, okay? Now go.” He turned back to his car and went to the trunk. The detectives had begun to follow him, but slowed their advance when he got out the battery-powered chainsaw and a blow torch he’d bought at the Home Depot, which he dropped into a large backpack. He thought he even saw them frown a little when he added the printed pages of Kathy’s document on Nilhollow, a small hatchet, and a sandwich from Olivia’s shop. Then he turned back to Colby and Sarinelli, who were staring at him like he’d finally pitched the rest of his marbles into the woods. He smiled to himself.

  “You, uh, going to explain those, Captain?” Colby asked.

  “Nope,” Mallon said and kept walking.

  The detectives hurried to catch up.

  “Sir, where are you going?” Sarinelli asked.

  Mallon stopped and turned, his impatience escaping in an audible huff. “In there.” He gestured toward the woods.

  “What—what about the command station?”

  “What about it?”

  Colby and Sarinelli exchanged uncertain glances. “Aren’t you going to . . . you know, coordinate everything?”

  “Why? You two can’t handle fielding radio reports and shuffling the map
around without me?”

  The two detectives stared dumbly at him.

  “Look, you handed me lead on this investigation, and I’m leading. My people are in there. I’m going in after them.” Mallon turned, and before either could express another asinine thought, he plunged into the forest.

  * * *

  So this was the famously haunted Nilhollow. State trooper Brent Carver was largely unimpressed.

  Unit six of the search party was the first to enter the woods, and not to be out-heroed by anybody, Brent had taken lead. They’d followed the path until it petered out to rocks and dirt, and then found themselves almost knee-deep in thick brush in some places. In others, the ground had its own kind of mange, its little patches of dirt exposing an overturned graveyard of bleached and half-buried rocks. As a whole, Nilhollow was, for the most part, both wilder and unhealthier than the rest of the Pine Barrens around it, but otherwise, to Brent Carver it was just like any other forest in New Jersey.

  Just a bunch of overgrown weeds and old trees, Brent thought. Waste of space. Waste of time, too. What does Mallon think we’re gonna find in the dark?

  Brent and fellow state trooper Helen “Hell-on-wheels” Cadmonson had been paired up with a thirty-something townie, Carl Witherspoon, and a painfully awkward but totally hot ranger and Russian transplant, Oksana Volkova. They’d made it in as far as a tree with a dark X on it, probably a hiking marker of some sort, and so far, their search had been uneventful. Their flashlights swept back and forth, back and forth over tangled shrubs, pine needles, and squat little mushrooms, but they saw nothing by way of clues that might explain the disappearance of those troopers or the civilians. No torn cloth, no orphaned shoe, nothing. In a way, it was laughable to Carver that they would. Nope, no Perry there, in that tangle of ferns. No Grainger under that downed trunk there. Not that he expected to find anyone in the dark.