The Trail

by Brian Francis

  Father Glick returned to the altar and studied the remains. The body was headless. The legs collapsed awkwardly in an unnatural direction, like a life-size doll hastily tossed into a dumpster. Glick looked around and found the head resting upside down against the wall.

  What did this guy do, the priest wondered. How did Martin find him? He prayed that Martin hadn’t changed the trail markers again. Martin was too stupid to realize that stunts like that would only get them caught.

  Glick grabbed a black tablecloth from the sacristy and spread it in front of the altar. He lugged the body onto the sheet and retrieved the head. Collecting the four corners of the tablecloth formed a sort of morbid Santa sack, with bloody limbs poking out in all directions.

  Dragging the body out to his pickup truck was difficult work. A small, abandoned access road beside the church would make getting the body to the lake relatively secret work, at least.

  With that much done, Glick reentered the church and sat down behind the altar to rest. He started to worry about the trail markers again. The body had looked like that of a hiker.

  He’d have to go check the markers, then go over to the shack tonight and beat that stupid son-of-a-bitch.

  Glick hoped that sheriff didn’t start looking around. What was his name? Andrews? Adams? That was it: Adams. Glick hoped fat Sheriff Adams would stay away. Adams had already seen too much.

  Glick was aware of the previous surveillance team and the video tape. He’d had it destroyed once he learned of its existence. He wasn’t sure what Adams had seen, but he knew the fat cop had found the cow sacrifice in the circular clearing. He’d watched the sheriff make the discovery, as he hid in the tree line.

  Adams was sloppy, but he would put the pieces together eventually. We could kill him, Glick thought. But to kill a cop would only bring more cops. No, he’d just have to make sure the sheriff saw nothing else. No more mistakes. I’ll beat Martin good this time. He’ll remember this time.

  Footsteps came from outside. Glick went to the window and peered out. A hiker was approaching on foot.

  The priest laughed, recognizing the man, and went to stand openly in the doorway.

  “Is that a deer or a body in your pick-up?” the man asked as he drew near.

  “Body,” Glick said.

  “Martin’s up to his funny business again, huh?”

  “Yep,” Glick said. “That’s what it looks like. I wish you’d gotten here five minutes earlier, I could have used a hand.”

  “Sorry, Father, I’m a busy man. You know how it is with all these missing hikers.”

  The old priest laughed. “Yes, Officer Bryson. I know how it is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  After Jack split the wood, he piled the logs into neat little stacks next to the fire ring. Scott had asked if he could help, but Jack waved off his old roommate’s offer.

  Sick of depending on Scott, Jack thought. I’m my own man, now.

  Jack considered his relationship with Scott. He had to admit that in college he had relied on Scott often. Scott did all of the driving when Jack lost his license during his sophomore year of college, in a DUI arrest that was now legendary among his crew.

  Jack had left a frat party woefully smashed. It had taken him five minutes to start his black Mercedes coupe. The following drive lasted all of fifteen seconds, as Jack peeled out, barreled across a lawn, and smashed into a giant green rock.

  The rock had long been a campus symbol, and after graduation students traditionally painted their nicknames on the granite. Jack painted “420” when he graduated, a year later than expected due to flunking a math course.

  He didn’t paint his real nickname, earned that night: “Stuntman.” Students had gathered to witness the hilarious comedy of Jack, grasping drunkenly and ineffectively at the seat belt, and ultimately crawling out the driver’s side window.

  He remembered standing, wiping the blood from his nose, and promptly being cuffed by campus security. He’d lost his license for two years.

  “Stuntman,” whispered Jack, and a slight smile broke across his face. No one had called him that in years. He missed college. Missed being the hero. Life after college just wasn’t that exciting. He had bounced around, working a couple of restaurant jobs, smoking pot with the dishwashers, and halfheartedly sending out résumés.

  It was hard being the son of a doctor, everyone always expected “great things” from you. What do I have to offer, Jack wondered. I’m not smart. I’m not ambitious. Hell, I couldn’t even find the right trail.

  He felt some regret about how things had played out with the camping spot, but remained optimistic. The truth was, he’d never actually been to this spot before, either. He’d heard about it from a friend. It was a great spot, though, and he was glad they’d chosen it.

  He was also glad when Susan had supported him over Scott. Sure, she had bailed on him when they got lost—everyone had bailed on him.

  But Susan had initially supported him. That meant something. He remembered that time in college when he had kissed Susan in the laundry room. He remembered the smell of freshly washed clothes and Susan’s hair mixing in the air.

  He wondered if he’d still smoke pot if he lived with Susan—if he married Susan. I’m crazy, he thought, marveling at his own wild fantasies. It felt like he lived in two separate worlds: the real world, and the one that unfolded silently, secretly inside his own head.

  Still, the pot question was an interesting one. He had a feeling that he’d “clean himself up” if he were with Susan. He kept smoking pot with Kim because Kim didn’t care. Hell, there was a good chance that the only reason Kim was with Jack was for the medical grade marijuana from “daddy doctor”, as she called him.

  He wouldn’t mind quitting pot for Susan. Drinking, too. He wouldn’t mind changing his lifestyle. He imagined the two of them getting married. Living in a little town, like the one they had passed on the way here today, with the karate place and the little run-down bar.

  Well, maybe not that desolate and creepy, but a small town, and a small house—just big enough to have some kids. Kids, Jack thought to himself. Jesus, now I’m thinking about having kids with Susan. What is wrong with me?

  He broke off a small branch and started to snap the sticks into tiny twigs. He arranged the wood in the base of the fire pit. Better to prepare the fire now when you can see stuff…cause when the sun drops you can’t see anything.

  Susan. Kids. Two boys and a girl. She’d stay at home with the kids and he’d go off to his job. He wasn’t sure what he’d do for a job, but he knew he’d do whatever it took to make it work.

  Just then Susan walked down the trail toward him. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and tiny beads of sweat stippled her forehead. She looked fantastic.

  “Hey, Susan.”

  “Hi, Jack. Wow, good job chopping all the wood. Aren’t you the ambitious one,” she said with a smile.

  “Thanks. Yeah, well, we gotta get ready for the campfire tonight. Once the sun goes down it’s hard to see.”

  “I like it when it gets dark out,” Susan said, and giggled.

  Jack stopped preparing the fire and looked directly at Susan. “Let me ask you something,” he said.

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “What nickname did you paint on the green rock?”

  Susan put her hand against her forehead and laughed. “What nickname? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just curious.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Come on, it’s not stupid. You can tell me.”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed around me,” Jack assured. “Come on, what was it?”

  “If you must know, my nickname was Mom.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Martin knew the priest would be mad at him. The priest hated when he killed people and left them in the church. The priest hated it even more when he messed with the trail markers, but Martin loved
to play tricks on the hikers. Sometimes harmless tricks, like stealing their flashlights. Other times, more sinister ones, like knifing them in their sleeping bags while they slept.

  Martin was motivated by everything and nothing. Anger. Boredom. Angst. Loneliness. Horniness. Fear. Religion. And the priest. Always the priest.

  He knew the priest had probably found the body by now. Knew that the priest would bang on his shack door soon. Knew that the priest would beat him. It was like the beatings his parents gave him long ago, when he grew up in Crenson.

  He was never quite sure why he was punished. It might have been that he’d forgotten to clean his room, or for seemingly no reason at all. His father would simply return from work and say, “Go to the woodshed.”

  Martin had been powerless. Afraid. His father beat him with a metal rod, and then a bat, and finally his bare fist. During the height of violence his father muttered what sounded like prayers, and became visibly aroused.

  Then his father had unmanned him in humiliating ways.

  Martin had managed to block specific details for years and years. Occasionally flashbacks occurred, mostly when he killed people. Sometimes the scenes inside the woodshed flickered when he stabbed.

  A flashback had hit him in the church. For a brief moment, the hiker on the altar had looked just like his father. That’s why he had cut the hiker’s head off.

  Martin’s only joyful childhood memory was of playing with the boy across the street. He was surprised, but not shocked, when he found out that the boy, now a married man, had committed suicide with a shotgun. He knew why the man killed himself. He sometimes wondered why he didn’t kill himself, too, as they were both exposed to the same terrible secret.

  The shack’s door burst open.

  “You stupid fuck,” the priest shouted at him. “You stupid, stupid fuck! Why did you leave a body in the church? And the trail markers—” The priest suddenly smacked Martin across the face. “Martin, you stupid idiot! Why did you mess with the trail markers? You didn’t think I’d notice? I told you never to do that again—and you didn’t listen! You stupid fuck!”

  Martin cowered, shuddering. He hated to disappoint the priest, but he didn’t know what else to do. Killing was the only thing that made sense to him.

  “What are you gonna do with the body, Martin? Did you ever think of that? What are you gonna do with the body? No—you never think of that. It’s me. It’s always me left to clean up the mess. The body is in my pick-up, but I’m sick of doing the work for you.”

  “I’m…I’m sorry.”

  “Shut up!” The priest struck Martin across the face again. “Just shut up, you stupid fuck! I’m sick of helping you out! I’m sick of getting rid of the bodies. Tonight it’s going to be different. Tonight, you’re dumping the body!”

  Martin thought about the other bodies. The hiker with the dreadlocks. The old couple in the car. He remembered the girl in the bathing suit entering the lake. He’d wanted to kill the four campers earlier, but he had gotten distracted and returned to his shack.

  He would dump the hiker’s body. That would please the priest.

  Then he would visit the campers again.

  Chapter Forty

  “Mom?” Jack asked. “Mom?”

  “I told you it was stupid.”

  “Mom?” Jack chuckled. “Why did they call you Mom?”

  “I don’t know,” said Susan, squirming uncomfortably. “It was just a nickname.”

  “No, every nickname has a reason. You know what they called me, right?”

  “Stuntman,” Susan responded.

  “And why did they call me that?”

  “I guess because of that time you crashed your car on campus. And how you crawled out of your window…like a stuntman.” Susan smiled remembering the image. She was there that night. She had stood beside Scott as campus security hauled Jack away.

  She had whispered, “what an idiot” to Scott, but part of her was thrilled by Jack’s recklessness. Scott was so measured and planned and, well, Susan hated to think the word, boring, but he was…Scott was boring.

  Ironically, Scott now thought she was boring because she wanted a family. Susan believed Scott was boring in an entirely different way. He was boring because he refused to grow up. He wanted to travel and play, but the truth is, that stuff gets boring after a while. Vacations get boring. Susan wanted something more. Sure, a family would be difficult, but it would be the biggest sort of adventure they could experience. Far greater than a few days in some European city, pretending to admire crumbling statues and eating in sidewalk cafés.

  Kids offered the ultimate adventure. Scott didn’t want kids because he was an eternal kid himself. What was the term my psych professor used about someone who refused to grow up—Peter Pan. That’s it! A Peter Pan complex. That’s who Scott is: Peter Pan.

  Susan looked at the neat piles of logs next to the fire ring. She thought about how Jack had collected firewood for them, and something about the act made her very happy.

  “Stuntman,” Jack said and smiled. “They don’t call me that much anymore.”

  Susan laughed. “Well, maybe you’ve grown up. Growing up can be a good thing.”

  “Maybe, Mom. Okay, tell me more about your nickname.”

  Susan stood up and started strolling away from the campsite. Jack followed. As they meandered along a soft, easy trail, Susan continued her explanation. “A bunch of my girlfriends came up with the nickname because they thought I always acted like a mom. I lived in a house with four other girls, and I was always the mother figure or something. I cooked dinner for us, I took care of the house, I…” Susan trailed off in thought. “I guess the other girls called me Mom because they thought that one day...” She drifted off again and dabbed at a tear that escaped her right eye and rolled down her check. “They said that one day I’d make a great mom. And now I’ll never have the chance.”

  Birds chirped in the trees above their heads. The sun lowered toward the horizon. Long shadows fell across the ground as a cool breeze rustled the leaves.

  Jack took a step closer to Susan. “Why won’t you ever have the chance?”

  “It’s Scott. He doesn’t want kids. He doesn’t think we should have kids.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s got this theory that we should remain light on our feet. Whatever that means. He likes to travel and stuff, and he thinks kids would ruin that.”

  “Susan,” Jack said. He paused and looked into her eyes. “What do you want?”

  Susan broke into deep sobs. “I want kids. It’s all I ever wanted.” Jack grabbed her and held her tight. Susan repeated again and again into Jack’s shoulder, “It’s all I ever wanted. It’s all I ever wanted…”

  After a time, Susan leaned back, looked at Jack, then kissed him.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “I don’t know who he was.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve never seen him before?”

  “Never. He just came out of the woods and started killing…oh God…oh God.”

  Sheriff Adams was entering his second hour of interviewing the old woman, and he was getting absolutely nowhere. She was pretty banged-up and bandaged, but she had wanted to come to the police station as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t forget anything. She wanted her husband’s killer caught. Despite her doctor’s warnings, she fled the hospital and entered the police station ready to help.

  A red shirt. A fucking red shirt. That was about all he could get out this woman. This Clair. The maniac who had killed her husband and left her for dead was wearing a red shirt. Wearing a red shirt, hell, that’s half the guys in rural Pennsylvania.

  Adams took a step back from the woman and examined her again. Jesus, this guy did a number on her. The woman’s saggy flesh was marked with yellow and black bruises. The orb of her left eye was filled with blood, and three of her front teeth were broken. “Did he say anything?”

  “No,” the woman responded. “He just stood by the side of the roa
d, and my husband slowed down to see if he needed help.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No, he was standing there. And I think he was bleeding from his leg. Yes, I think he was bleeding from his leg.”

  “Okay, good,” said Sheriff Adams. “That’s good. What else? Anything more about his physical description?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think, Clair. Think!”